Peter Burke
Well that was far from pretty and 80 mins of my life I won’t get back. MOTM Harry Sheridan speaking to BBC Sport afterwards:
Ulster, in fairness to them, were missing Henderson, Herring, Kitshoff, Timoney and Moore so we will allow for that.
However, it was an extremely frustrating watch – mistakes, handling errors all added to the frustration of the viewing.
Ulster struggled to make any headway and all but two stood out in the first 40, Ewers and Lowry. The Cardiff winger Cabango was lethal with ball in hand and its a blessing for Ulster he didn’t get more of it.
Cardiff opened the scoring on 13 mins with a slight of hand inside pass to Cabango and De Beer converted.
Hume was replaced by McIlroy through an injury on the 19 minute mark but Ulster struggled to get going.
Doak kept them in touch with penalty kicks on 28 and 35 mins which made it 6-7 for the visitors as they hit they sheds.
The second half wasn’t much better but who else but the Cardiff winger pops up again, Cabango scores a well executed try and De Beer does the honors with the conversion.
Stockdale hits the bin on 49 mins for a deliberate knock on but some good news, on a night that it was badly needed, McCann goes over and a much needed try for Ulster.
It was all drama in the end when it appeared Cardiff had scored again but ref Mike Adamson called them back for a knock on – so that left us with 2 minutes of drama in an otherwise forgettable encounter.