Ulster 13 Connacht 10

A flash of individual brilliance from Craig Gilroy was enough to warm up a wet and wintry Kingspan Stadium tonight as Ulster edged out inter-provincial rivals Connacht with a hard-fought three-point victory. Gilroy’s whirlwind first-half try, backed up by eight points from the boot of the returning Paddy Jackson and some dogged defending in unforgiving conditions, sealed Ulster’s seventh league win of the season and fourth place in the Guinness Pro12 standings at the half-way stage of the campaign. CLICK HERE for tickets to Ulster's next home match against Leicester Tigers on Saturday 24th January. Pat Lam’s side made the early running, attacking with pace down both wings in the opening moments, and securing a well-deserved penalty dispatched by out-half Jack Carty on four minutes. Olding was soon in the heart of the action, spectacularly sliding across the turf to retrieve a Connacht clearance and, as the visitors infringed at the breakdown, Jackson put his first kick of the evening just inches wide of the posts. The out-half made no such mistake on 14 minutes after Connacht had been pulled up for offside, then was instrumental in the first try on 19 minutes as he rapidly supplied Gilroy from Marshall’s pass on the brink of the ‘22’, and the winger showed both poise and guile to pirouette his way through three tackles to touch down. Jackson added the extras, but was off-target with another errant penalty on 26 minutes as Ulster began to turn the screw. Despite all of Ulster’s dominance of possession and territory, it was Connacht who ended the first half in the ascendancy, camping out in the home ‘22’ for a good four minutes before the whistle, but unable to breach a solid Ulster defence line. Half-Time Score Ulster 10 Connacht 3 The second period followed the same understated rhythm as had the first until it moved up a gear in the 51st minute, Gilroy breaking through along the left wing only for play to be pulled back for a forward offload from Tuohy. A strong line-break from Olding quickly followed, before some incisive kicking into the corner from Marshall put the Westerners under extreme pressure five metres from their line. However, Connacht defended well at the line-out and a subsequent five-metre scrum, keeping Ulster at bay well into the game’s final quarter, when Jackson slotted over a penalty from close range. Connacht still had an ace to play, however, pulling themselves back to within three points on 68 minutes courtesy of an Aly Muldowney try from a rolling maul, converted by Carty. With 10 minutes remaining and the result hanging in the balance, yet more muscular work from the Connacht forwards got the visitors inside the Ulster ‘22’ until a fine tackle from Tuohy disrupted their advances and forced the knock-on. A final Ulster foray into Connacht territory in the 78th minute petered out with a maul infringement, but the three-point victory was enough to ensure Ulster finished 2014 in a play-off position in the Pro12 table, in advance of the crunch clash with fellow title-chasers Leinster – currently three points behind Ulster in fifth – at the RDS on Saturday 3rd January. Full-Time Score Ulster 13 Connacht 10 Ulster (15-9) L Ludik; C Gilroy, D Cave, S Olding, P Nelson; P Jackson, P Marshall; (1-8) C Black, R Herring, W Herbst, D Tuohy, F van der Merwe, R Diack, C Ross, R Wilson (c); Replacements (16-23) J Andrew, A Warwick, D Fitzpatrick, A O’Connor, S Reidy, M Heaney, I Humphreys, M Allen Connacht (15-9) D Leader; D Poolman, B Aki, D McSharry, M Healy; J Carty, J Cooney; (1-8) D Buckley, T McCartney, F Bealham, U Dillane, A Muldowney, J Muldoon, W Faloon, G Naoupu; Replacements (16-23) D Heffernan, JP Cooney, R Ah You, A Browne, E Masterson, K Marmion, C Ronaldson, M Muliaina