Record breaker Fife helps blow away Connacht

DOUGIE Fife scored the fastest try in Guinness PRO14 history as Edinburgh extended their winning streak with a 29-22 defeat of Connacht at the Sportsground.

The Scots enjoyed a dream start with Fife scoring after just 10 seconds via a charge-down of a kick, eclipsing the league’s previous quickest try by Nathan Brew for the Dragons (18 seconds) against Cardiff in 2005.

Jaco van der Walt, who missed the conversion, landed a seventh minute penalty, but Connacht hit back with two converted tries from Tiernan O’Halloran and Tom Farrell after 11 and 16 minutes.

Edinburgh responded past the midpoint of the first half, with Duhan van der Merwe scoring a try to make it 14-13, although Van der Walt’s conversion attempt was off-target. A Jack Carty penalty put four points between the teams just before half-time.

Duncan Weir struck a 61st minute penalty, but Connacht bounced back again with a Finlay Bealham try.

However, Carty’s replacement Ronaldson pushed the conversion wide and then blundered when his kick on halfway was blocked by Weir, who dribbled through and scored to the right of the posts, although there were some question marks over the grounding.

The influential stand-off tagged on the extras and added a final penalty to complete his decisive 16-point contribution in just 19 minutes.

• THE Toyota Cheetahs moved a step closer to a place in the PRO14 play-offs thanks to a 2917 victory against the Dragons.

The South African side won at Rodney Parade thanks to tries by wing Sibahle Maxwane (2), flyhalf Fred Zeilinga and full-back Clayton Blommetjies.

Victory extended their advantage over fourth-placed Cardiff Blues to 10 points in Conference A and closed the gap to second-placed Munster to two. IT was around this time last year that Ulster met Cardiff in a game that would ultimately derail their season.

There were four games, not five, remaining at that stage of the year but it was a draw at home to the Blues that left Ulster with a massive uphill battle to make the play-offs. Failure to win today would result in a similar strife, but Ulster are facing a side who, unlike themselves, have real momentum.

While the visitors’ defensive alignments are altered since then, they struggled mightily with Rey Lee-Lo and Willis Halaholo when these sides last met, the former helping himself to a pair of tries. Ulster have some rare stability in the midfield and will need Stuart McCloskey and Luke Marshall to be sharp, especially without the ball.

While neither side is likely to want this to turn into an arm wrestle between the forwards, Cardiff have the hugely experienced Welsh loosehead Gethin Jenkins in the number one jersey, fresh from a man-of-the-match performance. Wiehahn Herbst will have his hands full.

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