Blues complete Ulster double
Cardiff Blues secured their second Magners League victory over Ulster in two weeks on Saturday with a 33-24 triumph at Ravenhill.
By Rachel Griffiths
Last Updated: 03/04/10 10:16pm
Cardiff Blues secured their second Magners League victory over Ulster in two weeks on Saturday with a 33-24 triumph at Ravenhill.
Dai Young's men are compensating for their stuttering start to the season with a late surge of wins, and still have slim hopes of making the play-offs and staying in next season's Heineken Cup.
For Ulster, however, the result marked their fourth league game without a win and turns up the heat on the Irish side to finish ahead of Connacht, who sit bottom of the table.
Victory
Blues claimed their victory with tries from man of the match Casey Laulala, Ulster-bound Xavier Rush and replacement Dafydd Hewitt, while 14 points came from the boot of Wales international Leigh Halfpenny.
Ulster delivered a second-half fightback thanks to tries from Stephen Ferris and Chris Henry, but they could not do enough to loosen Cardiff's grip on the game.
Niall O'Connor opened the scoring for Ulster with an early penalty from under the posts as a result of Gethin Jenkins being pinged at a five-metre scrum after David Pollock was held up over the Blues line.
Blues controlled the remainder of the half, however, as Ulster could only respond to two tries from the visitors with O'Connor's place-kicking.
Laulala scored shortly after Ulster's opening penalty when he picked off a pass from O'Connor and ran over unchallenged from 60 metres away, while Ceri Sweeney added the extras.
Halfpenny booted his first penalty nine minutes later after Laulala's 10th-minute score and then kicked a long-range effort just before the half-hour point after Ulster prop BJ Botha was penalised for dropping a scrum.
O'Connor kicked a penalty to keep Ulster in the game, but Blues came straight back five minutes after the half hour mark as Rush touched down under the posts, with Sweeney converting to make it 20-6.
Despite a third penalty from O'Connor, it was Halfpenny that completed the scoring for that half, landing his own third penalty to put Blues 23-9 in front going into the break.
O'Connor cut the visitors' lead to 23-12 just after the restart before Ferris powered over for an unconverted score eight minutes ahead of the hour mark.
Comeback
Ulster looked to be mounting a serious comeback at 23-17, but Halfpenny booted another penalty before falling just short from halfway.
With 10 minutes remaining, replacement Hewitt eluded Botha for a try, which Halfpenny converted.
Henry ploughed over for an Ulster try two minutes from time with Ian Humphreys adding the extras, but the damage was already done as Cardiff completed their back-to-back wins.
