Leinster beat the European champions in the scrums, they beat them in the line-outs, they beat them on the ruck count, they beat them in the back row, they played most of whatever adventurous rugby was on view at Donnybrook and they even created more try chances. But Ulster beat them on the scoreboard. When you're used to winning, you're used to winning.
Aside from being the cuter, more streetwise side, Ulster stealthily withstood a huge territorial disadvantage in the last 50 minutes to score three times pretty much from their three excursions into Leinster territory.
In the opening half-hour, they had already established a winning platform largely through the metronomic boot of Simon Mason, and thereafter calmly absorbed pressure through their other bedrock, an unflinching defence. What little exhausting headway Leinster made was usually around the fringes, but not until a couple of moments of pure class from Brian O'Driscoll late on did they ever look like outflanking Ulster's in-yer-face four-up defence. Whenever Leinster did move the ball to midfield, they were invariably ensnared by Jonathan Bell and Jan Cunningham.
Still, it was hard not to feel some sympathy for them. Leinster hardly deserved to finish without even a bonus point courtesy of a breakaway late try, and thus find themselves nine points adrift of Ulster already.
Yet they had their chances and didn't take them. Barry Everitt, in fairness, is not playing with the confidence of a year ago and is not a front-line kicker, yet five from eight (compared to Mason's perfect five), some hesitant option taking, loose kicking and loose passing undermined his team. Furthermore, they need a stronger runner to take the ball up the middle in midfield.
Nonetheless, they were twice over the line but failed to ground the ball, and twice had concerted bouts of five-metre scrums, the second yielding three penalties but no penalty try.
Mike Ruddock bemoaned that factor, and the lengthy stoppage which eventually resulted in the bigger Richie Weir decisively replacing Allen Clarke, whereupon the Leinster scrum made no more inroads.
By comparison Ulster scarcely took the ball beyond second phase once. David Humphreys stayed in the pocket and kicked ad nauseum. They cynically took out Malcolm O'Kelly at a close-in line-out, obstructed off the ball regularly, ran down the clock with injury time-outs and wheeled scrums on their own put-in.
Initially, Ulster played the kind of rugby Harry Williams was looking for. While Dave McHugh and Mason were ruthlessly punishing an ill-disciplined Leinster, Ulster launched their big runners. Off a called line-out move, Cunningham checked the drift and offloaded to a fast-travelling Andy Ward. He delayed the offload unduly, but Tyrone Howe hacked on, gathered a favourable bounce and scored.
Perhaps there was too much familiarity, and too many personal high stakes. The first bust-up after three minutes, featuring most of the back-rowers and Paddy Johns, signalled a feisty, fractious and fragmented encounter in which McHugh's whistle was the dominant force, and the kickers thereafter exchanged penalties until the break. A surge from Malcolm O'Kelly ended with him losing the ball over the line when hit by Bell.
Buoyed by that, Leinster closed to 12-16 with an Everitt penalty and upped the tempo after the break. Bob Casey made a number of charges, O'Kelly's workrate was huge, while Trevor Brennan and Victor Costello eclipsed their pacier counterparts in the brawn department.
But Everitt missed the posts and then hit the outside of one with 30-metre penalties, having also missed one before the break. When he finally did bring it to 1516, Gary Longwell brilliantly snaffled O'Kelly's tap-down from the restart and Humprheys landed a drop goal.
Brennan duly chased down the next restart and back came Leinster. With Girvan Dempsey error-free as usual under the aerial stuff, Leinster pinned Ulster down. But they needed something special. Cue to O'Driscoll on 70 minutes.
Everitt's kick was half blocked, but with the Whites being made to look stationary, O'Driscoll sped onto the ball, danced one of his jigs, got back on his feet and chipped through brilliantly in the tackle, Corrigan getting over the line in the ensuing forward skirmish but couldn't ground the ball.
Then came the bout of scrums, after which O'Driscoll cut loose out wide, and chipped ahead only to see his hack on cruelly come off his knee and go dead. Just to rub salt in Leinster wounds, Everitt's loose pass led to a turnover, Humprheys kicked on from the recycle and Dion O'Cuinneagain did his gazelle impersonation; and Ward was in support to give Mason the try-scoring offload. A touchline conversion? No bother.
Scoring sequence: 3 mins: Mason pen, 0-3; 7 mins: Howe try, Mason con, 0-10; 12 mins: Everitt pen, 3-10; 16 mins: Mason pen, 3-13; 18 mins: Everitt pen, 6-13; 24 mins: Everitt pen, 913; 26 mins: Mason pen, 9-16; 37 mins: Everitt pen, 12-16; 56 mins: Everitt pen, 15-16; 57 mins: Humphreys drop goal, 15-19; 82 mins: Mason try and con, 15-26.
LEINSTER: G Dempsey; D Hickie (capt), B O'Driscoll, G Gannon, J McWeeney; B Everitt, C Scally; R Corrigan, S Byrne, A McKeen, R Casey, M O'Kelly, T Brennan, V Costello, L Toland. Replacements: G Halpin for McKeen (79 mins), D Hegarty for Scally (76 mins).
ULSTER: S Mason; J Topping, J Cunningham, J Bell, T Howe; D Humphreys (capt), S Bell; J Fitzpatrick, A Clarke, G Leslie, P Johns, G Longwell, D O'Cuinneagain, E Miller, A Ward. Replacements: R Fredericks for Cunningham (23-27, 58 mins), R Weir for Clarke (74 mins), M Blair for Longwell (60 mins), T McWhirter for Miller (49 mins).
Referee: D McHugh (Munster).
