Double Reward For Ulster After Masterful Murrayfield Victory

A colossal performance at BT Murrayfield tonight guaranteed Ulster home advantage in the GUINNESS PRO14 play-offs, with the 29-7 bonus point win and a nine-point defeat for Benetton Rugby against Munster leaving Dan McFarland’s side clear in second place in Conference B.

With 59 points now under their belts, Ulster cannot be caught by Benetton or Edinburgh regardless of how the final round of fixtures plays out in two weeks’ time. The result sets up a home quarter-final at Kingspan Stadium on the weekend of May 3-4 against provincial rivals Connacht, who secured third spot in Conference A with a home win over Cardiff Blues.

First half tries from Jordi Murphy and Robert Baloucoune set the Ulstermen on their way in the Scottish capital, before scores from Robert Lyttle and Billy Burns sealed the bonus point in a display that was poles apart from last Friday night’s poor collective effort against table-topping Glasgow Warriors.

With Edinburgh pulled up twice by referee Nigel Owens within the first three minutes for not releasing and then not rolling away, John Cooney clipped over the second penalty from 30 metres out to establish an early lead. Led by man-of-the-match Iain Henderson, Ulster threatened again from the restart but hesitancy at the ruck allowed Edinburgh to steal, and the visitors soon lost Martin Moore to an ankle injury.

However, aggressive chasing from Jacob Stockdale and Baloucoune, in a youthful back-three, put Edinburgh straight back under pressure on 11 minutes. When Grant Gilchrist ripped the ball backwards in a tackle on Nick Timoney five metres out, Murphy took advantage of the absence of an offside line for a try that his alertness deserved.

Cooney converted for a 10-point lead, which should have been cut down to seven through a Jaco van der Walt penalty late in the first quarter, only for the kick to rebound off an upright. Ulster continued to defend with energy as Edinburgh came again, the Scots not helping their cause when a subsequent van der Walt penalty failed to find touch.

Back in possession on 27 minutes, Ulster made good ground courtesy of a neat offload from Stockdale to Rob Herring as the full-back was taken down in the tackle. Nonetheless, after three minutes of phases, WP Nel was the home hero with a crucial turnover on Kieran Treadwell on the Edinburgh five-metre line.

But another missed touch from van der Walt put his side straight back under the cosh, and quick feet from Cooney almost got Baloucone in at the corner, his pass veering just behind the onrushing Ireland Sevens international who, had he collected, would surely have scored.

While Ulster were enjoying by far the better territory and possession, the wastefulness of their two near misses suggested cause for concern until a moment of brilliance from Baloucoune gave them the 15-point half-time lead their performance deserved. From a sharp Burns pass, electric feet from the youngster left full-back Darcy Graham for dead, and a combination of pace and power took the winger over in the corner before the Edinburgh chasers could force him into touch.

Ulster repelled persistent pressure from Edinburgh from the restart for a good 10 minutes until a marginal knock-on from Gilchrist bought them some breathing space. Lyttle took full advantage moments later when he picked up from Stockdale and eluded Mark Bennett’s challenge before showing great strength to propel himself over the line with three Edinburgh players trying to drag him down.

Cooney’s conversion put Ulster 22 points to the good, reduced to 15 on 57 minutes when replacement flanker John Barclay ghosted past Luke Marshall and to the line for his side’s first points, topped up by Simon Hickey’s conversion.

Lyttle continued to torment the Scots, both on his wing and down the middle as the clock edged past 70 minutes, before Marshall’s tackle on Graham forced a knock-on and effectively put paid to any slim hopes of an Edinburgh comeback. Back in possession, Ulster mauled their way up-field before a show-and-go from Burns sealed the bonus point – and the out-half’s first try in Ulster colours.

Their return to winning ways saw Ulster rewarded on the double with a place in the PRO14 final series and qualification for next season’s Heineken Champions Cup. Praising the players afterwards, head coach McFarland said: “To come here, the home of the European Cup quarter-finalists and get a bonus point win is a testament to their efforts, it is fantastic!

“It is really important for the province to make the play-offs, we are a side who want to regular compete for championships and to do that you have to be in the play-offs. There is the dual aspect of Heineken Champions Cup qualification which is done now, so that is very important as well, but we are a proud province, one that wants to be playing in these play-off games.

“We enjoyed the preparation for the Champions Cup quarter-final (against Leinster), we took a lot from that and now we will enjoy the preparation for first of all Leinster, which is obviously a huge game for us in the final round, and then the quarter-final.”

He added: “We were a bit missing last week around our set piece. There was a big improvement – they did a lot of work on scrum during the past week. We knew that was going to be titanic. It was not going to win the game for us, but we could certainly lose the game if we allowed Edinburgh to get on top of us.

“We also needed possession in the game, last week it did not look good, but we played some really good rugby. The bottom line is when you lose a lot of lineouts like we did last week (against Glasgow) you just cannot get a foothold in the game. Whereas today we were consistently able to get a foothold in the game.”