Ulster beat Leicester to open European campaign

O'Connor, Addison and Stockdale score in 24-10 victory at Kingspan

INPHO
Author: Alex KeeryPublished 13th Oct 2018

Ulster's European Champions Cup campaign is off to a winning start after they overcame Leicester 24-10 thanks to an impressive second half performance at Kingspan.

The first half passed by largely without incident, with Leicester's George Ford knocking his side ahead with a 15th minute penalty.

However, he was then shown a yellow card with 22 minutes player after taking down Michael Lowry with a high tackle as the Ulster full-back powered towards the line after a 40 metre break.

4 minutes into the second half, Ulster lock Alan O'Connor finished strongly from close range after good, controlled play by the pack, with John Cooney kicking the extras.

Less than a minute later, Ulster thought they had scored again, this time through Iain Henderson, but it was disallowed for a forward pass in the build-up.

However, the province grabbed their second try just before the hour, with Will Addison finishing well from close range after a strong line-break by substitute Sean Reidy.

With ten minutes remaining Cooney knocked over another penalty, but Ulster were hunting for a bonus point.

The third try came in the 73rd minute with Jacob Stockdale diving to finish in the corner after collecting Stu McCloskey's pass.

Manu Tuilagi then scored for Leicester having eased through a few half-hearted tackles, and game ended 24-10 in favour of the Irish province