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| 17 January 2003, 10:07 pm |
| Saints Lose To Ulster But Win Qualification |
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ULSTER 16
NORTHAMPTON SAINTS 13
Friday, January 19, 2003
Ravenhill
Northampton Saints narrowly missed out on a victory at Ravenhill, despite being at least one man down for a total of 25 minutes of the game. However, they still managed to do enough to ensure they qualified for the quarter-final stage of this season's Heineken Cup.
The vital component that gave Saints the 'enough' they needed was a try from Ben Cohen early on in the second half following a successful Saints lineout and a neat pass from fly-half Paul Grayson. The wing's try set up a journey too far for the Ulstermen as they would have needed to score at least three more tries in the remaining minutes of the half to have any chance of winning the pool.
And it was a journey too far against some fierce defence by the visitors. Well it looked fierce, and fair, to much of the 12,000 crowd, but to referee Joel Dume, it looked like foul play. The Frenchmen sent three Saints players to the sin-bin in the second half. The first was Cohen, seven minutes after he scored his try, and the second and third doled out to replacement prop Chris Budgen, and then flanker Mark Soden, unfortunately overlapped, which meant Saints had to defend their lead with just 13 men for part of the remainder of the game.
It was too tall an order for the men in black, green and gold. They held onto their narrow 10-13 lead for 13 minutes before Ulster scrum-half Neil Doak drew the game level in the 80th minute with a penalty, and then an out-of-sorts David Humphreys punted over a drop-goal in the fourth minute of injury time to seal the victory - however fruitless.
But Humphreys did have the opportunity to take his men into a sizeable lead in the first half, but missed two kickable penalties and one drop-goal. He did, however, manage to kick the conversion to flanker Neil McMillan's try, which took Ulster into a 7-0 lead. Grayson made slight inroads before the end of the first half by booting over his first penalty attempt.
Cohen's try gave Saints the lead after six minutes of the second half, and Grayson stretched that to 7-10 with a conversion. But Humphreys levelled the scores again with a drop-goal just three minutes later to add an edge to an already passionately fought game.
Humphreys missed two more penalties before Grayson got one of his own in the 67th minute. His effort was in vain though, as Doak and Humphreys managed to claw back Ulster's lead, but not the winners spot in pool six.
Teams:
Northampton Saints - Beal; Brooks (Sleightholme 71mins), Jorgensen, Leslie (capt), Cohen; Grayson, Dawson; Smith, Thompson (Richmond 64mins), Morris (Budgen 52mins), Williams (Phillips 72mins), Hunter, Seely (Todd 75-81mins), Soden, Connors.
Ulster - Cunningham; Topping, Constable, Stewart, Coulter; Humphreys, Doak; Kempson, Sexton, Best (Fitzpatrick 64mins), Longwell, Davidson, Ward (capt), McMillan, McWhirter (Nelson 68mins).
Referee:
Joel Dume
Touch judges:
Frank Maciello & Stephan Pomarede
Scorers:
Northampton Saints - Try: Cohen; Con: Grayson; Pens: Grayson (2).
Ulster - Try: McMillen; Con: Humphreys; Pen: Doak; DGs: Humphreys (2).
Yellow cards:
Cohen (53mins)
Budgen (71mins)
Soden (78mins)
Attendance:
12,000
Heineken man of the match
Robbie Kempson
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