Heineken Cup Review - Ulster 22 - 16 Leicester Tigers

 

With all the whinging, backstabbing and public denouncements over the future of European club rugby over the last few weeks, it’s been easy to forget that we’ve got a full season of the world’s best club competition coming up – and the majority of rugby fans couldn’t wait for it all to kick off.  Perhaps, though, one team who weren’t looking forward to their opening fixture was the Leicester Tigers.  That sounds like an odd statement when referring to one of the traditional European superpowers, but the bottom line is that, after the draw pitted them away against Ulster first up, Leicester have shown all the resilience of a damp biscuit at Ravenhill.  Their two heaviest European defeats have come in Northern Ireland, including their catastrophic 41 – 7 disintegration in January 2012.

 

For one awful moment – for Tigers fans – it looked as if Ulster would pick up where they left off last time they played, as Tommy Bowe found himself in space with Luke Marshall free on the outside, but the Lions winger through an awful pass straight into touch.  It proved to be a costly miss as well, as Leicester surged back to the other end of the pitch.  A smart break by the in-form Toby Flood took the visitors to within 10 metres of the Irish side’s line, and allowed Dan Bowden to fling a long pass out the inappropriately positioned Logovi’i Mulipola, who produced one of the slowest finishes ever seen by a ‘winger’ to crash over for a try in the corner.  Flood slotted a superb conversion and the East Midlanders, perhaps surprisingly, found themselves 7-0 up.

 

The fightback, though, was inevitable and Ulster did it in some style.  With a powerful rolling maul getting close to the Tigers’ line (being pulled down illegally), Paddy Jackson used the advantage well to land a beautiful cross-kick over the head of the backpeddling and into the hands of the soaring Tommy Bowe.  Jackson then added a conversion to match Flood’s, before the Leicester man struck back shortly afterwards when a Leicester driving maul was pulled down. 

 

Despite the Bowe try, it was the visitors who had looked the better side in the opening half an hour, with the scrum utterly dominant and the likes of Nikki Goneva, Ed Slater and Miles Benjamin – making his first start after 18 months out with a neck injury – all making significant yards.  But the men in white were never going to stay quiet for long and, after Julian Salvi had gone off his feet to concede a penalty, a great break by Luke Marshall forced Leicester into conceding another.  Jackson slotted both opportunities and it meant that Ulster, against the run of play arguably, had themselves a 13-10 lead at the break.

 

The Tigers looked to stem the surge of white and the wall of noise that was building around them by carrying aggressively and keeping the ball tight and, with Ben Youngs and Flood operating smoothly, it seemed to be paying dividends as the visitors set up camp by the Ulster line.  But there were soon hearts in mouths as Jackson intercepted an optimistic flick on by Tom Youngs and scampered down field to score, only to be called back for offside by Roman Poite.  To rub salt in the wound, it resulted in a penalty which Flood slotted to draw the Tigers level.

 

After that, though, it was all Ulster, as the pack – led superbly by Johann Muller – began to take control of the arm wrestle.  The likes of Nick Williams and Chris Henry were now dominating the collisions and making easy yardage, and the Ravenhill faithful thought they had a reward when great interplay between Bowe, Williams, Marshall and Jared Payne sent Darren Cave racing clear, but they were pulled back for a fairly obvious forward pass by the TMO. 

 

Things weren’t going well for the Tigers though.  Firstly, they started sending isolated runners into the Ulster pack, allowing the hosts easy turnovers, and secondly they started to fade in the scrum battle, with Tom Court winning a couple of penalties, despite Dan Cole’s protestations at the legality of the loosehead’s angle.  The pressure was beginning to mount and, when Jordan Crane was sinbinned for cynically not rolling away, you got the impression that this game was now about bonus points than the victory.  During his time off the park, Jackson earned his side 9 critical points with the boot and Ulster were, more or less, out of sight.

 

It looked even worse for Leicester as the impressive Flood picked up a knock and had to be replaced by youngster Owen Williams, but luckily the Tigers – now up to 15 players – began to claw back some territory for the first time in 30 minutes.  Williams went close with a well-struck drop-goal attempt, which slammed off the upright, before strong running forced a penalty 40 metres out.  The new man showed nerves of steel, and the English champions were at least within bonus point range.

 

Leicester did have one more chance to launch an attack from deep, but they were content to kick the ball out to bring an engaging and physical encounter to an end with the score at 22-16 to the hosts.

 

So Ulster may have won the battle but, with Leicester gaining a bonus point in a group where the big 3 sides are expected to win at home and lose away, who has won the war?  It looks like we’ll have to wait until Saturday 18^th January next year for the return fixture...and an answer.

 

As a PS, may I congratulate Stuart Barnes and co for comprehensively removing any shred of doubt I had about BT providing a better coverage of club rugby, as they provided an Ulster-focused viewpoint throughout the entire 80 minutes – and after.  The touchline correspondent – an ex-Ulster player – claimed that Tommy Bowe could be excused his mistake as he was ‘rusty’ having not played for 3 months.  He then slated Miles Benjamin, conveniently forgetting that this was his first appearance for 18 months.  After breaking his neck. 
 

 

What happened in the rest of the Heineken Cup’s opening round?

 

Pool 1:  Castres picked up an important 19 – 13 home victory in a scrappy encounter against Northampton whilst Leinster struggled to fully click against the Ospreys, despite running out 9 – 19 winners in Swansea.

 

Pool 2:  Exeter and Toulon both put in superb first half showings but then allowed the visitors bonus points in the second half.  The English side ran out 44 – 29 winners against the Cardiff Blues, with the reigning champions picking up a 51 – 28 win at home to Glasgow.

 

Pool 3:  Connacht gave English hopefuls Saracens a scare in a muddy affair in Galway, with the Londoners scraping a 17 – 23 win.  Toulouse, meanwhile, coasted to victory at home against Italian minnows Zebre with a 38 – 5.

 

Pool 4:  Harlequins suffered a surprise defeat at the hands of the Scarlets as they went down 26 – 33 at home, whilst Racing Metro came out on top in the all-French affair at home to Clermont, emerging with a 13 – 9 win.

 

Pool 5:  In the other fixture in Pool 5, Montpellier crucially didn’t pick up a bonus point away in Treviso, battling to a 10 – 27 win.

 

Pool 6:  Edinburgh claimed a dramatic 29 – 23 win at home against Munster whilst Gloucester overcame Perpignan 27 – 22 at Kingsholm.