Ulster captain Rory Best could scarcely conceal his delight after Ulster's hugely important 24-10 win over Leicester gave their Heineken Champions Cup campaign a positive lift off and some momentum to take to Paris for next Saturday's encounter with last season's beaten finalists Racing 92.
Best and co had to roll their sleeves up and get down and dirty during an increasingly rain-soaked 80-minute wrestle with the Tigers to emerge winners.
“It was a really, really tough game,” said the Ulster captain. “They’re a quality side and they came with big runners, and we had to front up a few times and just throw our bodies in the way of them. But I think that’s a win we can be really, really happy with.”
The penalty count went heavily in Ulster’s favour by 13-6, and Best continually chose the option of going to the corner, save for taking one three-pointer from in front of the posts at 14-3 in the 69th minute. Eventually, the policy yielded a dividend.
“It’s something that we’ve been working really hard on,” said Best. “We haven’t seen the fruits of our labour in terms of our maul attack but I think we saw a little bit more of it tonight than probably we have this season. But we’re working really hard on it and I’ve a lot of confidence in those eight forwards, to get front- foot ball for our exciting backs, and I think a lot of it was just about having the confidence and having the courage to keep going to that corner.
“You do feel under a little bit of pressure when you don’t get points when they’re down to 14 men, but thankfully the way we went about our business in the second half, that sort of told eventually.”
Indeed, although Ulster trailed 3-0 at half-time, Best felt that in some respect the seeds of the win were sewn in that first period, when Ulster dominated territory and possession.
"We put a lot of hard work into that first half and probably the scoreline didn't necessarily reflect that. In that yellow-card period [George Ford was sin-binned in the 22nd minute] we obviously didn't get the scores that we wanted but I think that took it out of them a lot. When you're on your own line with 14 men, even if you don't concede, sometimes it can be a massive lift for you and sometimes it can drain a team. And the way we started the second half thankfully proved the latter for us, because they started to think about the time they were defending as opposed to getting their tails up again."
Leicester forced three penalties at scrum time in the first half, but Ulster adapted and restricted the damage as the night wore on, after Marty Moore had been introduced for his Ulster debut before half-time, in what was also the ex-Leinster prop's first game since May.
“I think we started to figure the scrum out a little bit better in the second half, with Marty coming on early,” said Best. “Because of the boys being in South Africa around the time the likes of myself were coming back, we didn’t get to scrum with them.
“I think tonight was probably the first time I’ve scrummed with Marty Moore potentially since the 2015 World Cup, and that’s a long time and it is about combinations, especially for us when we’re not a massive pack. Those combinations just need a little time to gel and at one stage in the first half it felt a little bit frustrating and it felt a little bit like last week,” he said in reference to their difficult night in the scrums against Connacht, when they conceded a try.
“But tonight we were able to find a solution and dig in, and it helped that we had eight forwards on the pitch for the whole time.”
Leicester coach Geordan Murphy felt that his side's first-half performance had been "pretty controlled", adding that he was pleased with his defence and to have had that 3-0 lead at half-time, albeit he was disappointed not to have made it 6-0 with Ford's drop goal attempt at the end of the first half.
“At half-time I thought we were in a strong position. I certainly felt watching the boys coming up the tunnel that our guys were fresher and could really add something in the second half. Unfortunately we came out and started [the second half] really, really poorly. We gave away a penalty on the half-way line for not looking after our own ball at our breakdown and Ulster got seven points pretty much straight away and that dented us a little bit.
“After we found ourselves 14-3 down, effectively the game is dead at that stage, just because the conditions closed in. Ulster played smart rugby, killed the game, put the ball in behind us, made it really difficult for us to exit. And they’re the margins. Ulster were better at executing in our 22 than we were,” said Murphy, who accepted that Leicester were now in must-win territory at home to the Scarlets next Friday night.
