John Cooney earns losing bonus point as Glasgow maul gets the better of Ulster
Glasgow Warriors 17 Ulster 11
Jacob Stockdale of Ulster is tackled by Sebastian Cancelliere of Glasgow Warriors at Scotstoun Stadium in Glasgow. Photo: Paul Devlin /Sportsfile
ULSTER remain ahead of Glasgow in the table but only by the slenderest of margins after John Cooney’s last-gasp penalty earned a losing bonus point in Scotstoun.
Ulster had led this one at the turn but did not score in the second half until the last kick of the game.
In between, Glasgow grabbed two maul tries having already opened the scoring through the same method, to seize control of this key game in the URC table.
The northern province got off the mark just shy of the half-hour mark when Harry Sheridan crashed over for his first Ulster try.
Nathan Doak’s conversion in testing conditions was pushed across the posts to keep the scores at 5-5.
After another penalty concession from the hosts, Doak sent Ulster to the sheds with a three-point lead as he punished a high tackle with a well-struck effort from the tee.
The hosts started the second half on the front foot as a scrum penalty against Ulster gave Glasgow the platform for their second score of the night with just over 15 minutes remaining. Glasgow’s maul was again well executed as Jack Dempsey crossed the whitewash.
After Rory Sutherland was penalised, Glasgow went for the corner again and for a third time on the night, Franco Smith’s men got the maul try, on this occasion with Scottish international Fraser Brown providing the finishing touch.
Later, when Glasgow infringed at the maul, Cooney earned his side a consolation.
Glasgow Warriors – J McKay; C Forbes, S McDowall (c), S Johnson, O Smith; T Jordan (D Weir, 67), J Dobie (A Price, 56); N McBeth (J Bhatti, 56), J Matthews (F Brown, 56), Lucio Sordoni (S Berghan, 56), L Bean, S Cummings (JP du Preez, 56), T Gordon , S Vailanu (E Ferrie, 75), J Dempsey.
Ulster – E McIlroy; B Moxham (C Gilroy, 56), J Hume (L Marshall, 76), S Moore, J Stockdale; B Burns, N Doak (J Cooney, 50); E O’Sullivan (R Sutherland, 45), T Stewart (J Andrew, 61), J Toomaga-Allen (A Warwick, 67), A O’Connor (c) (C Izuchukwu, 67), K Treadwell, H Sheridan, J Murphy, N Timoney (G Jones, 61).
Ref – Craig Evans (Wales).
