The Front Row Union Sport - Champions Cup: Saracens 33 Ulster 17

Champions Cup: Saracens 33 Ulster 17

Jan 17, 2016

—

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.

I’d expected Ulster to find that extra something to win this one and for fifty minutes they remained competitive but the ultimate machine, that is Saracens Rugby, ground them done and pulled away in the last quarter for the inevitable bonus point win.

An early try from Luke Marshall kept Ulster in the game but by the time Ian Humphreys raced clear, with an intercept effort, the outcome had already been decided.

Saracens (13) 33

TRY: Billy Vunipola, Duncan Taylor, Maro Itoje, Schalk Brits. CON: Owen Farrell (2). PEN: Owen Farrell (3).

Ulster (7) 17

TRY: Luke Marshall, Ian Humphreys. CON: Paddy Jackson (2). PEN: Paddy Jackson.

Ulster looked reasonably comfortable for the bulk of the first half but a series of misfiring line outs let Saracens off the hook and the hosts took full advantage with a driving maul that ended with Billy Vunipola touching down over the Ulster line. With Owen Farrell converting the home side took a 13 – 7 point lead into the break and once they had established the lead they never looked back.

Paddy Jackson knocked over an early second half penalty to push the score along to 13 – 10 but Farrell replied four minutes later and when he found Duncan Taylor in acres of space moments later the game was over with the conversion giving them a ten point lead.

Maro Itoje and Schalk Brits crossed to wrap up the bonus point win for Saracens before Humphreys raced clear, but by that stage most of my interest in the game had gone.

Final Score: Saracens 33 Ulster 17.

Ulster: Jared Payne, Andrew Trimble, Luke Marshall, Stuart McCloskey, Craig Gilroy, Paddy Jackson, Ruan Pienaar, Kyle McCall, Rory Best, Wiehahn Herbst, Alan O’Connor, Franco vd Merwe, Robbie Diack, Sean Reidy, Roger Wilson. Replacements: Rob Herring, Callum Black, Ricky Lutton, Lewis Stevenson, Clive Ross, Paul Marshall, Ian Humphreys, Rory Scholes.

Saracens are a relentless machine, probably the on form team in Europe at the minute, but despite the score line Ulster aren’t that far behind. Add Dan Tuohy, Ian Henderson, Chris Henry and Nick Williams to the Ulster pack and we would have seen a different game but them’s the breaks.

A couple of miss firing throws from Rory at the line out didn’t help Ulster’s cause and that was probably the biggest disappointment as this failure to function smoothly at key times is a glitch we’ve carried for a few seasons now with no sign that it’s been fully addressed.

As for the Allianz Park experience, well, what a dump! No facilities, no infrastructure, no atmosphere. I won’t be rushing back!