Ulster lose out in pre-season friendly
Leinster 31 - 14 Ulster
By Ciaran Donaghy
Ulster’s new season began how the last one ended, with a defeat away at Leinster – albeit in a friendly.
Director of Rugby Les Kiss decided to give youth a chance in the pre-season encounter at Navan, but three tries in the last three minutes gave Leinster victory.
Full-back Louis Ludik made his first appearance for Ulster since February - the South African, prop Kyle McCall and lock Alan O’Connor were the only first team regulars in the starting line-up.
Ulster started well, forcing a penalty which they kicked to the corner and, from the lineout, the forwards set up a driving maul, but knocked on in the Leinster 22.
Leinster started to get the upper hand and took the lead after 11 minutes.
The home side kicked a penalty to touch, lock Ross Molony took the line, and the forwards propelled flanker Dan Leavy over the line with out-half Ross Byrne converting.
Ulster spurned an opportunity to get back in the game on 19 minutes when they won a penalty under the Leinster posts, but they took it quickly and the attempted pass to the wing drifted into touch.
Ulster drew level on 28 minutes - following a strong break by Ludik, centre Mark Best put a grubber kick in behind the Leinster defence and he pounced on the loose ball to touch down, with captain Sam Windsor adding the conversion.
Leinster regained the lead in first-half injury time - centre Rory O’Loughlin made a superb solo break going from the halfway line to five metres out and he popped the ball to Irish international back row Jack Conan to cross the whitewash.
Byrne’s conversion gave the home side a 14-7 lead at the interval.
Both sides rang the changes at the break with Ulster giving a debut to Ireland prop Rodney Ah You.
There was an explosive start to the second half as Leinster lock Ian Nagle was sin-binned - Ulster kicked the resulting penalty to the corner, but Molony stole the line out.
Leinster had Ireland U20 prop Andrew Porter yellow carded and Ulster made their numerical advantage count with a second try on 65 minutes.
Winger Jacob Stockdale recovered a kick in the Leinster 22 and his quick hands put Queen’s back Robert Lyttle over, with Johnny McPhillips converting.
Ireland U20 flanker Josh Murphy started the try blitz in the closing stages.
O’Loughlin was the creator again as he collected his own chip and found Murphy with an offload, but Joey Carbery couldn’t convert.
The next try followed a minute later, when South African full-back Zane Kirchner made a decisive break done the left wing and fed Ireland centre Fergus McFadden for a simple run in, although Carbery failed to convert.
Winger Adam Byrne took advantage of some tiring legs in the Ulster defence to round off the try scoring in injury time and Carbery slotted over the conversion.
Leinster
N Morris, A Byrne, R O’Loughlin, T Daly, B Daly, R Byrne, N McCarthy, P Dooley, J Tracy, M Bent, R Molony, H Triggs, D Ryan, D Leavy, J ConanUlster
L Ludik, D Busby, M Best, S Windsor, J Stockdale, B Herron, D Shanahan, K McCall, J Murphy, J Simpson, A O’Connor, J Donnan, S Mulholland, N Timoney, M Rea