Connacht 26 Ulster 19
What’s seldom is indeed wonderful! Just ask Connacht Head Coach Stuart Lancaster who was beside himself with glee after his charges scored a rare victory over Ulster in Belfast to make it four wins on the trot in the BKT United Rugby Championship on Friday night.
While the Red Hand province tasted defeat, it would be true to say that both Leinster and Munster experienced humiliating reverses in Scotland and South Africa respectively, making the men from the West the rugby story of the week from an Irish point of view.
This was their first victory over any other home province in over two years and was warmly welcomed by the management and small band of travelling support in the Affidea Stadium.
Connacht got in for four tries to secure a bonus-point win and it was heartening to record that three of the four dot downs came within the last half hour of play. Lancaster was purring with satisfaction at the attitude of his players, citing how they had held Ulster scoreless for 10 minutes when Finlay Belham was despatched to the sin-bin.
Said the former England Head Coach: “Huge satisfaction, to get a win at Ulster is unbelievably hard. Delighted with the win. Delighted with the lads. I thought we defended really well. And overall, I thought we deserved it.
“I thought all the replacements made a big effort, but ultimately, what probably prevailed in the end was the quality of our defence and our workrate off the ball to defend well, to get off the line and make it very hard for Ulster to break us. I thought we looked like we really enjoyed defending and defending well.
“I think that's the biggest change that I've noticed in the Connacht lads now. If you go back to the Glasgow game when we went 10-3 down. When I first arrived, there was this sort of deja vu look in everyone's face, like, 'here we go again, we know how the script runs’.
“It's been trying to break that psychological mindset. That Glasgow game was a big one for us to do that, obviously, against a top-of-the-table team. Now, to do it away from home should give us a lot of belief.”
