Dan McFarland’s coaching reign at Ulster got off to a successful – and dramatic – start as John Cooney’s last-minute penalty just edged out the Scarlets 15-13 as the GUINNESS PRO14 made its return to Kingspan Stadium for 2018/19.
Proving just as instrumental in this evening’s opener as he was all season long last term, John Cooney scored all of the home points courtesy of five penalties, while the 2017/18 runners-up breached the try-line once through Rhys Patchell in what was a tight and pulsating encounter.
New recruits Will Addison, Henry Speight and Billy Burns all made their PRO14 debuts in the curtain raiser, at full-back, wing and out-half respectively. Winger Craig Gilroy, centres Darren Cave and Stuart McCloskey, and scrum half Cooney completed the province’s back-line.
Up front, Marcell Coetzee made a welcome return at flanker after an injury-ravaged 2017/18 campaign, slotting into the back row along with Sean Reidy, either side of number 8 Nick Timoney. Props Andrew Warwick and Tom O’Toole, hooker John Andrew, and locks Alan O’Connor and Iain Henderson made up the front five.
Despite good work from Speight to eliminate an early Scarlets charge that got them well within the Ulster five-metre line, the visitors’ ferocious start paid dividends with Patchell darting over for a sixth-minute try, and converting his own score.
The concession brought better play from Ulster straight away, the Irish-qualified Addison collecting a high ball and then kicking on for Gilroy to chase down the right wing. The first points arrived soon after courtesy of a Cooney penalty after the Scarlets had creaked at scrum time right in front of the posts.
A second three-pointer followed from wide on the left, but a huge hit in defence from O’Toole then put a premature end to the teenage tighthead’s day after a head injury assessment, bringing Ross Kane into the pack. Undeterred by the personnel change, Ulster continued to chip away at the Scarlets defence, eventually taking the lead on 25 minutes, once again courtesy of Cooney’s reliable right boot.
The remainder of the opening 40 minutes played out scoreless as a final Cooney penalty attempt fell just inches short of the crossbar, but the speed of the Ulster movement and the cohesion of their scrum, both of which became more apparent as the half wore on, offered as much encouragement as the 9-7 lead they ran off with at the break.
The Scarlets, who have 14 players out injured at present, hurtled into the second period at full throttle. Timoney came to Ulster’s rescue by brilliantly holding up experienced hooker Ken Owens over the try-line within 90 seconds of the restart.
The home side regrouped with Gilroy and Australian international Speight posing threat on the wings and Burns showing some nice touches in midfield. Nevertheless, the Scarlets were next on the scoresheet, their replacement out-half Dan Jones knocking over a 54th minute penalty from the 10-metre line.
Falling behind spurred Ulster into action, Cooney splitting the posts for the fourth time just before the hour mark, but hesitation at the restart gifted the visitors a close-range lineout, and a subsequent penalty saw Jones kick the Llanelli outfit back in front – 13-12.
After a lengthy pause for treatment after an accidental collision between two Scarlets players and a TMO review of a high tackle on Speight, which ended in a yellow card for Ed Kennedy, a surrendered lineout left Ulster without the ball for a good three minutes as the Welshmen muscled their way from halfway to the province’s 22.
The turnover came eventually, however, and as Ulster pressed up the field an infringement, wide on the right, gave Cooney the chance to snatch the victory – but his kick from 30 metres out spun wide.
Crucially, there was still time for one more twist in the tale, as Scarlets flanker David Bulbring followed Kennedy into the bin for an intentional knock-down of the ball as Ulster replacement Adam McBurney bore down on the posts. This time Cooney’s aim was true from a central position, his fifth successful penalty snatching the result for Ulster with mere seconds remaining.
Reacting to his first win as Ulster head coach, Dan McFarland admitted afterwards: “No, not the perfect start. The win, yeah absolutely, we’ll always enjoy a win. But by no means a perfect start. In actual fact, if it had been a perfect job, a perfect start, then I think I’d be getting really worried because that’s that, they wouldn’t need me anymore.
“The excitement for me comes in getting better day-on-day and there’s certainly plenty of that to be done. We looked really good when we kept the ball off the floor. I didn’t think we looked so good when it got to the breakdown.
“We want to play a game where we exploit the talents we have, so the breakdown has to be a lot better. First half we didn’t really lose much ball, but it was slow and pedestrian. Second half we lost a lot of ball, so that has to improve.”
He added: “I wanted a competitive edge, that’s what I wanted to see. I wanted it demonstrated by the individual players and the team as a whole, and I think I got that for a lot of the game. Some of the individuals out there really showed that fight for every inch mentality, and no more so than by the fact we had to squeeze it over in the last few minutes.
“Discipline is (a work-on), that is a funny work-on. You do not really go out and train discipline, that is something which has to be instilled with the behaviours within training. Certainly the contact area is definitely one and there is stuff around our shape in phase play, but these things are going to be one step at a time. Hopefully we’ll be one step further down the line next week.”
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