After four league defeats in a row since the start of the season, a fairly healthy 8,500 souls trudged their way in to Ravenhill more in hope than in expectation. Matt Williams had wielded the axe fairly heavily during the week and the team that lined out against Edinburgh bore little resemblance to the one that had suffered an ignominious defeat at the hands of the Ospreys six days earlier.

Those that made the journey were rewarded with the first win of the season, it wasn’t particularly pretty, and it wasn’t even particularly convincing, but it was a win and with the might of Stade Francais due to arrive in Ravenhill next week-end it was particularly timely.

Kicking off towards the beer-tent on a pleasant evening Ulster were almost immediately driven back into their own half by a determined Edinburgh side packed with Scottish internationals.  But the gunners were unable to capitalise on the pressure they exerted and  the Ulster defence repulsed them time and again. Instead it was Ulster who had the first real scoring opportunity but Schicofske was unsuccessful with his long range attempt and the scores remained nil all.  Ulster’s line-out was working much better and their scrum dominated pushing Edinburgh back off the ball on more then one occasion. But Willis was struggling to get the ball away cleanly from the breakdown, I suspect a lack of protection from the forwards was to blame as more than once he was scragged as he picked the ball up and failed to get the ball away.  Nevertheless Ulster managed to grind their way forward with David Pollack making the final break through to put Ulster ahead with a seven pointer.

Ulster continued in the ascendancy but were unable to break through the Edinburgh defence and  Clint missed another penalty just before the end of the half to leave Ulster with a single converted try  at the break.

From the restart it began to look as if Ulster might be about to fall into their old ways with Edinburgh landing two easily convertible penalties early in the half to reduce the deficit to a single point.

The game seemed to be slipping through our fingers, our backs were unable to make any meaningful penetration of the Edinburgh line, our scrum though still powerful was starting to be matched by the Scots and our few scoring opportunities were being squandered through over-ambitious kicking when a careful, patient game of working the ball up the park was called for.  A penalty in front of the posts  about 20m out allowed Clinton to re-establish a four point lead for Ulster and things began to look more secure.

As Ulster continued to pressure the gunner’s line Niall O’Connor charged down an Edinburgh clearance kick and though Ulster were unable to gather the ball for the touch-down Edinburgh were penalised for holding on. While a try may have been on from a kick to touch and a line-out they opted for the points and Clinton stretched the lead to 8 points.

As Ulster looked to close out the game Edinburgh began to look both dangerous and desperate. A penalty awarded just inside the Edinburgh half right in front of the posts was the cue to Niall O’Connor to have a long range shot to make the game safe but it was too ambitious and the score remained 13-6.  As we entered the closing stages Edinburgh threatened again to deny Ulster the victory but when they spurned a chance to go for a lineout in the corner in favour of taking the 3 points  from close to the Ulster line it became obvious that Edinburgh didn’t believe that they could break down the Ulster defence and a as the clock ran down it seemed that a first league victory of the season was finally ours.

The positives? Well our scrum was surely as dominant as it has ever been pushing Edinburgh back off the ball seemingly at will. Our line-out was good t, and thou I think we lost one early on we steadied the ship and even turned over a fair number of Edinburgh line-outs as the game went on.  We even got a decent rolling maul going several times throughout the game despite the fact that the ELVs allow the opposition to legally pull it down. Our defence was strong and our line was still un-breached by the end of the game and there was some sign of continuity and strong running in the backs.

The negatives? Well there was too much aimless kicking and aerial ping-pong. This is a fair enough tactic on a wet and windy night or when the opposition’s back-three are weak under the high ball but there was little or no return  for all this kicking, all it did was hand possession and initiative back to the opposition.  Our place-kicking was not good enough. We need to be less ambitions with place kicks, taking the easy points on offer and going for touch from the longer shots until the confidence and success-rate of our kickers  gives us better reason to believe that we will convert the opportunities into points on the board.. Our backs are working better but there is still little penetration and we seem to lack invention and the ability to play the off-loading game which most of the opposition seems to have got down to a fine art.

My players of the match were probably Pollack and Steinmetz both of whom put in sterling performances which in my mind were equal to that of the Magners’ MOTM Stephen Ferris.

Next week will see the return of HEC rugby to Ravenhill with Stade Francais making their bid for their first even win on Ulster soil having failed in four previous attempts. If we hadn’t won last night I’d have said we had no chance at all, now? Well I think we’re still the underdogs, but the French don’t travel well and they will be wary as so often they and their countrymen have left Ravenhill empty-handed.

Lets hope this small step is a corner turned and that Ulster step up to the mark and maintain their unbeaten record against Stade at Ravers.

I’ll be there.

Matt Williams said:

"Both teams were really tense, we should have put the game away a lot earlier. In the 80th minute Edinburgh were still in it and could have won with a try. We still played with a lot of fear and tension

"If Edinburgh had scored in the last minute, we would have been devastated and been pulling our hair out. But I couldn't have faulted their effort."