The Front Row Union Sport - Celtic Cup: Ulster A 32 Cardiff Blues A 5

Celtic Cup: Ulster A 32 Cardiff Blues A 5

Sep 2, 2019

—

We are currently carrying out a necessary behind-the-scenes upgrade to how images are stored and delivered on The Front Row Union Sports. With over 770,000 images on the site, we are moving our entire image library to a dedicated cloud storage service. This means images will load faster for you, regardless of where you are in the world, and the site will be more reliable overall.

As we are working on three separate versions of images during the offload process, the site cache sometimes struggles to keep up with which version to display and occasionally post grid images or complete galleries may fail to appear. This is a temporary side effect of the migration process — the image exists and is safe, it is simply in the process of being moved to its new home and identified as being there. A refresh of the page will usually bring them back, however, if it does not please contact john@thefrontrowunion.com stating clearly the post address and we will restore it as soon as possible. We apologise for any inconvenience this causes and appreciate your patience.

We expect the bulk of the image migration to be completed by the end of June 2026, with a fully upgraded version of the site ready to launch in August 2026. Once that work is done, the site will be noticeably faster, images will load more reliably, and you will not see any further disruption of this kind. Thank you for your continued support of The Front Row Union Sports.

Ulster A are playing some attractive rugby these days as they continue to keep the pressure on Leinster A at the top of the Celtic Cup league table and their game against Cardiff Blues A on Saturday evening at Malone RFC was no exception as they ran in four tries in their 32 – 5 win.

It was a cagey enough opening as the team’s tested each other out, a penalty from Ulster’s Bruce Houston the only score in the first quarter.

Ross Adair crashes over for Ulster’s first try.

Ulster looked to be getting on top and they went further ahead after Ross Adair crashed over off the back of a five meter scrum for an unconverted try from the experience centre.

A bizarre tackle by Cardiff on Azur Allison saw the Ulster player yellow carded as the Cardiff player upended himself but Ulster responded well and added a second penalty from Houston to take an 11 – 0 lead into the break.

Peter Cooper in full flight against Cardiff

A rampant Peter Cooper in open space got the second half off to a grand start with the Malone man taking the ball into the 22 before an acrobatic offload which Matthew Dalton, Hayden Hyde and Graham Curtis kept alive for Allison to barge over for a converted try.

It got better for Ulster with the try of this game, and many others, following shortly after.

Hyde started the move deep in his own half before the ball was taken on by Nathan Doak who offloaded to Conor Rankin on full charge for an extended run in. The timing of the passes were spot on in an exceptionally crisp execution. Huston converted from under the posts as the score rattled along to 25 – 0 for the home side.

Hayden Hyde capped an impressive game with Ulster’s bonus point try.

All that was missing was the bonus point and that was duly delivered when Huston put Hyde over for the bonus point score, the outhalf adding the conversion.

With Ulster leading 32 – 0 with minutes left the game was done and dusted but Cardiff got some reward from their efforts throughout the game with a late try from wing Dale Stuckey who chased down his own kick to slide over for the consolation score.

Final score: Ulster A 32 Cardiff Blues A 5

Ulster A: Conor Rankin, Ethan McIlroy, Ross Adair, Hayden Hyde, Graham Curtis, Bruce Houston, Nathan Doak, Callum Reid, Tom Stewart, Peter Cooper, Matthew Dalton, Jack Regan, Joe Dunleavy, David McCann (C), Azur Allison. Replacements: Claytan Milligan, Paul Mullen, Jonny Blair, JJ McKee, Matthew Agnew, Aaron Hall, Lewis Finlay, Greg Hutley.

Cardiff Blues A: Ioan Davies, Dafydd Smith, Barney Nightingale, Sam Beard (C), Dale Stuckey, Gareth Thompson, Jamie Hill, Huw Owen, Evan Yardley, Will Davies-King, James Ratti, Callum Bradbury, Sean Moore, Nathan Hudd, Morgan Allen. Replacements: Cameron Lewis, Ben Stephens, Ben Warren, Paddy McBride, Alex Everett, James Soanes, Rhys Davies, Alex Knott.