Ulster gave a hint that there are better days ahead when they turned in a spirited first half performance against a strong Richmond side at the Palace Grounds, Armagh, on Saturday. But when the visitors turned up the heat in the second half, the home side, despite numerous changes, were unable to sustain the pace.
Richmond, powered by several experienced international players such as Alan Bateman and Ben Clarke, were in low gear during the first half and Ulster led 14-12 at half-time thanks to two opportunist tries from Richard Mackey and Sheldon Coulter.
Richmond, however, exposed the frailties in Ulster's cover in the second half and Darren Chapman highlighted a fine individual performance with a hat-trick of tries. The visitors' other try-scorers were Matt Pini, Jason Wright, Bernie Harvey and Craig Quinnell with Irish international Simon Mason adding three conversions.
Ulster: J Cunningham (Ballymena); A Park (North), S Coulter (Ballymena), M Jack- son (Blackrock), S Carroll (Malone); S Laing (Portadown), S Bell (Dungannon); R Mackey (Malone), S Ritchie (Ballymena), G Leslie (Dungannon), G Longwell (Ballymena), T McWhirter (Ballymena), S Duncan (Malone), A Ward (Ballynahinch), S McKinty (Bangor, capt).
Richmond: S Mason; J Wright, M Hutton, A Bateman, D Chapman; A Davies, A Pichot; J Davies, B Williams, J Foster, R West, C Quinnell, R Martin, C Palmer, M Fitzgerald.
Referee - A Watson (Belfast).
Glasgow District's hopes of European Cup success next month look slim after they were comprehensibly beaten 49-15 by a strong London Scottish side in their first warm-up match. Missing Scottish internationals Ian Jardine, Shade Munro and Murray Wallace, Glasgow could only manage two tries through centre Alan Bulloch and replacement Andy Ness.
