IT WAS an occasion already top heavy with talking points when Nathan Doak’s last minute wrap-up of Leolin Zas as the South African crossed the Ulster line then trumped everything by becoming a penalty try.
It meant that the sides ended up finishing on 38-all, both walking away with three match points each; not ideal for either side, though the Stormers clearly looked the happier as referee Andrea Piardi and TMO Matteo Liperini adjudged that Doak’s tackle was high and illegally prevented a score.
It meant that Ulster had what would have been a dramatic result – they trailed 17-7 at one point – snatched from them meaning that the Challenge Cup finalists have now won just once from their last five URC games as securing a top eight finish looks as if it is going right to the wire.
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Other notable events from this pulsating game included Werner Kok’s hat-trick of tries, Iain Henderson’s 20-minute red card which could well end up in a ban, Doak being timed out on a conversion and Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu’s display and 21-point haul.
Naturally, the focus of discussion afterwards was on the penalty try.
“You know, the referee has to make the decision in regard to that,” Richie Murphy said of the last-minute incident, “but a very disappointing way to, I suppose, take a victory away.
Marginal
“You look at the collision, or the lack of collision, and you go, well, we can find at least another five occasions of that not being looked at during the game. So that’s quite difficult to take, you know, so I suppose, you know, is there head contact? Well, is it direct?
“If they score a try and (then) kick the conversion, you feel like they’d earned it, but (it’s tough) especially even with our own conversion being wiped off, which was very marginal,” he added of Doak’s timed out effort.
“So, in that regard, disappointing from our own point of view, you know, we look at that last sort of two minutes or so from a defensive point of view and we didn’t defend well enough.
“That’s for sure, but we’ve got a really big, strong physical attacking team coming at us as well.
“But, you know, over the 80 minutes, I thought the way we adapted to the sort of the things that went against us was really good and I thought we scored some brilliant tries as well and I thought the character that was shown within the team over the last couple of weeks has been really good.”
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'A very disappointing way to, I suppose, take a victory away' - Richie Murphy
IT WAS an occasion already top heavy with talking points when Nathan Doak’s last minute wrap-up of Leolin Zas as the South African crossed the Ulster line then trumped everything by becoming a penalty try.
It meant that the sides ended up finishing on 38-all, both walking away with three match points each; not ideal for either side, though the Stormers clearly looked the happier as referee Andrea Piardi and TMO Matteo Liperini adjudged that Doak’s tackle was high and illegally prevented a score.
It meant that Ulster had what would have been a dramatic result – they trailed 17-7 at one point – snatched from them meaning that the Challenge Cup finalists have now won just once from their last five URC games as securing a top eight finish looks as if it is going right to the wire.
Other notable events from this pulsating game included Werner Kok’s hat-trick of tries, Iain Henderson’s 20-minute red card which could well end up in a ban, Doak being timed out on a conversion and Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu’s display and 21-point haul.
Naturally, the focus of discussion afterwards was on the penalty try.
“You know, the referee has to make the decision in regard to that,” Richie Murphy said of the last-minute incident, “but a very disappointing way to, I suppose, take a victory away.
Marginal
“You look at the collision, or the lack of collision, and you go, well, we can find at least another five occasions of that not being looked at during the game. So that’s quite difficult to take, you know, so I suppose, you know, is there head contact? Well, is it direct?
“If they score a try and (then) kick the conversion, you feel like they’d earned it, but (it’s tough) especially even with our own conversion being wiped off, which was very marginal,” he added of Doak’s timed out effort.
“So, in that regard, disappointing from our own point of view, you know, we look at that last sort of two minutes or so from a defensive point of view and we didn’t defend well enough.
“That’s for sure, but we’ve got a really big, strong physical attacking team coming at us as well.
“But, you know, over the 80 minutes, I thought the way we adapted to the sort of the things that went against us was really good and I thought we scored some brilliant tries as well and I thought the character that was shown within the team over the last couple of weeks has been really good.”
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