The game kicked off in unusually bright sunshine with many of the home supporters enquiring what the glowing orb in the sky was and Leeds had much of the early possession. A penalty for not releasing led to CT missing his first kick after 6 minutes.

From the next passage of play Scott Mathie made a clean break and Alfie was cantering to score before being pulled back for a forward pass. A harsh decision was our unbiased recollection from 60 yards away.

Leeds then seemed to lose the plot a bit. After Leeds being adjudged offside after a knock on, Ulster put the penalty kick in the corner and from the ensuing line out the Ulster 13 went in to score under the posts. 7 nil to Ulster.

A poor kick from defence led to the next try as the Ulster 15 wandered past a few lacklustre tacklers to make 50 yards offloading to release the eventual scorer. A poor conversion attempt left the score 12 nil to Ulster.

At this point Jim enlightened us with the interesting bar pricing where two halves were cheaper than a pint but that’s Ireland for you.

Leeds then realised where the opposition half was and Ulster were pinged for not releasing and CT slotted home the kick to make it 12 –3 Ulster.

Following some good backs play Henry F make a break which led to a high tackle against Ulster and CT cut the deficit to 12 –6 and the ref blew for the end of the half which was characterised by reasonable attacking flair by Leeds let down by some of the worst defence seen for a number of years.

Leeds replaced the front row at the start of the second half and must have been reminded that tackling was allowed as the defence improved dramatically. Ten minutes in and the usual wholesale substitutions took place with 6 on including the debut of Mackay who seemed to bring a touch of class reminding Jim very much of himself in his younger days.

Ulster pressurised the Leeds line for the next ten minutes with only valiant try saving tackles keeping the score down. Eventually Ulster broke down the improved defence with the Ulster second row going over to score a converted try. 19 – 6 Ulster.

CT was replaced by CLP and Leeds again realised that winning a game was easier if you were in the opposition half rather that your own. After working their way up to the Ulster 22 Mackay made a break to put Ticknell through but as he tried to roll over the line with two tacklers attached he knocked on. From the resultant 5m scrum Ulster lost control of the ball and Warren Fury scored his first try for Leeds but injured himself in his reach for the line. CLP missed the conversion. 19 – 11 Ulster

From the restart Ulster opened their legs and showed us their class but were held up over the line and were then penalised for driving in as Leeds cleared their lines.

Mathie who was back on for the injured Fury took a quick penalty and two phases later Ticknell scored in the opposite corner. CLP missed the conversion. 19-16 Ulster

2 minutes to go Jacob Rowan found himself free after coming through the middle of a maul and with 40 metres to go to the try line tried a chip for the supporting Semi but the ball went straight to touch. Maybe Jacob should ask Rhys about the rules on back rows kicking rugby balls.

Titts stole the resultant lineout and Ulster were caught offside. The penalty seemed eminently kickable to tie up the game but Leeds chipped to the corner. The line out was won and after several drives close to the Ulster line the ball was lost and Ulster fly hacked through and the game was over and Ulster took the spoils 19 – 16.

To get the usual comments out of the way…shouldn’t be we winning this type of game / we are relegation cannon fodder. The answers are we could have won if the kicks had gone over and we hadn’t played to entertain and maybe if our first half defence was better.

So Leeds pre season finished full of sound and fury but no win and our thoughts are that we are continuing to build from last year but a top 6 finish requires substantial improvement and application to cut out the errors and convert the chances created.

Happy Birthday Roy!!

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