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Louis Ludik scores twice as Ulster dominate Dragons at the Kingspan

By PA
John Cooney fist bumps his colleagues /Getty

Ulster made it three wins from three in the Guinness PRO14 after running in six tries to claim a bonus-point win as they beat the Dragons 40-17 at the Kingspan Stadium.

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The foundations of the victory, played behind closed doors, were laid in a dominant opening half when the Irish province had already bagged their try bonus and led 35-3.

Louis Ludik crossed twice in that opening 40 minutes with John Cooney kicking conversions for all five of Ulster’s tries, with the other scores in the opening half coming from Marcell Coetzee, Eric O’Sullivan and Sean Reidy.

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Ulster’s unique position pays dividends

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Ulster’s unique position pays dividends

But Ulster’s dominance did not continue after the break when tries from Ashton Hewitt and a last-minute Jamie Roberts score saw the Dragons at least win the second half 14-5 on the scoreboard, Ulster’s only points after the break coming from an Alan O’Connor try.

Only four minutes in and Coetzee surged over for Ulster after the home side had stolen a Dragons throw and Cooney converted.

Sam Davies then cut Ulster’s lead five minutes later with a penalty shortly after Rhodri Williams had made a dangerous break.

Ulster’s second try came from O’Sullivan after the Irish province surged off a lineout, with Cooney converting the prop’s 15th-minute effort.

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Reidy was involved in the build-up for Ulster’s third score, which came in the 26th minute, before the flanker drove over the Dragons’ line with Cooney again converting to put the home side 21-3 ahead.

The bonus-point score now looked inevitable and two minutes later Ulster had it when Ludik dived over in the left corner, Cooney adding a superb conversion from the touchline.

He did the same two minutes from the break when Ludik scored his second after a great Ulster attack which allowed the Irish province to end the half leading by 35-3.

The second half was by no means the same one-way traffic and there were no scores until the hour when Ulster – with Matt Faddes in the bin and multiple substitutions breaking the Irish side’s rhythm – were unable to prevent Ashton Hewitt from scoring, the try being converted by Davies.

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O’Connor got Ulster moving again following some good approach work by the home team’s pack as he dotted down for the Irish province’s sixth try, although Bill Johnston missed the conversion.

The game ended with Roberts smashing through from close ranger and Davies converting.

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J
JW 20 minutes ago
Why England's defence of the realm has crumbled without Felix Jones

This piece is nothing more than the result of revisionist fancy of Northern Hemisphere rugby fans. Seeing what they want to see, helped but some surprisingly good results and a desire to get excited about doing something well.


I went back through the 6N highlights and sure enough in every English win I remembered seeing these exact holes on the inside, that are supposedly the fallout out of a Felix Jones system breaking down in the hands of some replacement. Every time the commentators mentioned England being targeted up the seam/around the ruck or whatever. Each game had a try scored on the inside of the blitz, no doubt it was a theme throughout all of their games. Will Jordan specifically says that Holland had design that move to target space he saw during their home series win.


Well I'm here to tell you they were the same holes in a Felix Jones system being built as well. This woe is now sentiment has got to stop. The game is on a high, these games have been fantastic! It is Englands attack that has seen their stocks increase this year, and no doubt that is what SB told him was the teams priority. Or it's simply science, with Englands elite players having worked towards a new player welfare and management system, as part of new partnership with the ERU, that's dictating what the players can and can't put their bodies through.


The only bit of truth in this article is that Felix is not there to work on fixing his defence. England threw away another good chance of winning in the weekend when they froze all enterprise under pressure when no longer playing attacking footy for the second half. That mindset helped (or not helped if you like) of course by all this knee jerk, red brained criticism.

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