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Ringrose leads 14-man Leinster from 19 points down to victory over Ulster

By PA
Garry Ringrose of Leinster celebrates with teammates after scoring their side's second try during the United Rugby Championship match between Leinster and Ulster at the RDS Arena in Dublin. (Photo By Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile via Getty Images)

Leinster produced a stunning response to Cian Healy’s first-half sending-off as captain Garry Ringrose’s classy second-half brace inspired a 38-29 bonus-point win over Ulster at the RDS.

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Leo Cullen’s men trailed by 19 points at one stage, with tries from Rob Herring, Kieran Treadwell and Ethan McIlroy punishing Healy’s head-on-head tackle on Tom Stewart in the 20th minute.

However, with Ronan Kelleher reducing the deficit to 22-10 by half-time, the BKT United Rugby Championship leaders somehow cruised to their ninth straight victory thanks to scores from Ringrose (two), Andrew Porter and James Lowe.

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It was a huge missed opportunity for the Ulstermen, who had tasted victory here last year. They lost both James Hume and Nick Timoney to the sin bin, but gained a late bonus point through replacement Sam Carter.

Ross Byrne’s second-minute penalty punished Stuart McCloskey for not rolling away before John Cooney levelled to reward Martin Moore for forcing a scrum penalty.

Knock-ons from Jamison Gibson-Park and Billy Burns summed up a stop-start opening quarter, yet the loss of Healy was immediately exploited by the visitors.

Stewart’s replacement Herring scored from a lineout drive in the left corner, Cooney nailing the difficult conversion for a 10-3 lead.

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After Burns drew a high tackle from Byrne, McCloskey and Moore were stopped short before powerful lock Treadwell widened the margin to 14 points.

Leinster were stung further when Stewart Moore used turnover ball to race clear up the right and release McIlroy to canter to the posts.

Hooker Kelleher piled over from a late maul, with Byrne converting from out wide, and Leinster’s international-laden bench brought plenty of impact.

Ringrose nimbly spun away from Hume for a slick 58th-minute try, converted by Byrne. It was a double blow for Ulster, with Hume sin-binned for head contact.

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Increasing his influence, Ringrose soon stepped inside two defenders to move his side ahead at 24-22. Timoney saw yellow for collapsing a maul beforehand.

With more gaps opening up, the influential Porter plunged over from a ruck.

Byrne then scooped a long pass out for Lowe to strike in the 75th minute before Carter made sure Ulster took something home.

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Tom 53 minutes ago
England player ratings vs South Africa | 2024 Autumn Nations Series

That 2019 performance was literally the peak in attacking rugby under Eddie. If you thought that was underwhelming, the rest of it was garbage.


I totally get what you're saying and England don't need or have any God given right to the best coaches in the world... But I actually think the coaches we do have are quite poor and for the richest union in the world, that's not good enough. 


England are competitive for sure but with the talent pool up here and the funds available, we should be in the top 3. At the very least we should be winning six nations titles on a semi-regular basis. If Ireland can, England definitely should.


England's attack coach (Richard Wigglesworth) is Borthwick's mate from his playing days at Saracens, who he brought to Leicester with him when he became coach. Wigglesworth was a 9 who had no running or passing game, but was the best box kicker in the business. He has no credentials to be an attack coach and I've seen nothing to prove otherwise. Aside from Marcus Smith’s individual brilliance, our collective attack has looked very uninspiring.

 

England's defence coach (Joe El-Abd) is Borthwick's housemate from uni, who has never been employed as a defence coach before. He's doing the job part time while he's still the head coach of a team in the second division of French rugby who have an awful defensive record. England's defence has gone from being brutally efficient under Felix Jones to as leaky as a colander almost overnight.


If Borthwick brings in a new attack and defence coach then I'll absolutely get behind him but his current coaches seem to be the product of nepotism. He's brought in people he's comfortable with because he lacks confidence as an international head coach and they aren't good enough for international rugby.


England are competitive because they do some things really well, mostly they front up physically, make a lot of big hits, have a solid kicking game, a good lineout, good maul, Marcus Smith and some solid forwards. A lot of what we do well I would ascribe to Borthwick personally. I don't think he's a bad coach, I think he lacks imagination and is overly risk averse. He needs coaches who will bring a point of difference.


I guess my point is, yes England are competitive, but we’re not aiming for competitive and I honestly don't believe this coaching setup has what it takes to make us any better than competitive.


On the plus side it looks like we have an amazing crop of young players coming through. Some of them who won the u20 world cup played for England A against Australia A on the weekend and looked incredible... Check out the highlights on youtube.

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