Leicester Tigers 33-24 Ulster: Stunning second half Leicester fightback sinks Ulster

Ulster head coach Dan McFarland has admitted it will take his side some time to recover from their Challenge Cup semi-final defeat by Leicester.

Quickfire tries from Jasper Wiese and Ellis Genge saw the hosts turn the game around by the 60-minute mark before Guy Porter’s late score sealed the win.

They will now face either Bath or Montpellier in the final on 21 May.

“You don’t move on from this quickly. That was a chance to be in a European final,” said McFarland

“I’d be really disappointed with the situation that we’re in, where we demonstrated in the first half that when we’re able to execute we were by far the better team.

“Their kicking game was absolutely superb throughout, ours dropped of and as a consequence they won the match. We’re not recovering from that quickly.”

Few games this season in either the Premiership or the Pro14 will have featured such contrasting halves of rugby.

In the first 40 minutes Ulster were the dominant force with Leicester looking limp and short on ideas, only for a complete role reversal after the break.

Leicester’s win was orchestrated brilliantly by George Ford at fly-half, whose decision making and accuracy with both ball in hand and his right foot drove the Tigers first back into the game, and then into a lead that they did not relinquish.

Having been so impressive in the first half, Ulster are now left to face up to what was a second half capitulation that wrecked their quest for European silverware.

Ulster seemingly set course for final in ruthless first half

It has been 15 years since Ulster last lifted silverware, and having been knocked out of the Champions Cup, Europe’s second tier competition was seen as the perfect competition for the northern province to end their wait for a trophy.

On the basis of their first half display, few would have bet against them to go on and lift the trophy at Twickenham after a ruthlessly accurate opening 40.

Their efforts were aided by an uncharacteristically timid Leicester, whose lack of commitment at the breakdown allowed Ulster to come forward in waves.

Just two minutes after Robert Baloucoune had a try ruled out for a knock-on in the build-up, Leicester captain Tom Youngs was sent to the sin-bin as the hosts’ foul-count stacked up.

Iain Henderson drove over shortly after as Ulster made the most of their extra man, scoring a second try through Billy Burns as they exploited numbers out wide.

Leicester could not get a foothold in the contest and when they did finally surge into the Ulster 22, they coughed up a penalty on their own scrum to further frustrate their cause.

Agencies