Three weeks ago Ravenhill was regarded as one of the scarier places to travel to in European Rugby, but with Leinster ending Ulster’s 21 match unbeaten run at the venue and following the Osprey’s victory today one has to assume team’s won’t be as fearful anymore.


The Osprey’s went top of the table following the 37 points to 24 victory over Ulster thanks in a big part to the boot of Gavin Henson who grabbed them 17 points in the match.


Despite the victory Ulster were without doubt the stronger team in the first half leading 14 points to nothing at the interval. They opened the scoring with a Bryn Cunningham try after 10 minutes. The match then went through a scrappy period with both team’s missing penalties, before a Kevin Maggs try gave them the 14 point lead.



Neil Best was sin-binned just before the break and this may have been the catalyst that kicked The Osprey’s into top gear. 30 seconds into the second half Shane Williams opened the Osprey’s account. Only six minutes later this was added to by a David Bishop try to level the scores while Neil Best remained in the sin-bin.



However even a full strength Ulster side coudl not improved there defense enough to stop the Ospreys from picking up a third converted try thanks to an inspired move from Shane Williams that allowed Dave Tieuti to score. Ulster managed to get the scored level around 10 minutes later but Gavin Henson put The Ospreys back in the lead with a long range penalty.



Sonny Parker gave the vistors the bonus point in the 68th minute and Henson duely converted to give them a 10 point lead. Humphreys narrowed this gap with a penalty, but a late drop-goal and penalty from Gavin Henson secured the 34 point to 23 victory for Neath-Swansea Ospreys.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 26th, 2004 at 12:15 am and is filed under Ulster, Celtic League. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.