After two successive home defeats in European games, last season’s quarter-final defeat to Saracens and October’s loss to reigning champions Toulon, and two successive Pool defeats this season, Best’s boys outmuscled the Scarlets to move off the bottom of the Pool 3 table.
Scarlets had only lost once in six previous European meetings against Ulster and made a promising start at the Kingspan Stadium when Rhys Priestland kicked a fourth minute penalty to grab the lead. It helped the visitors’ cause that Ian Humphreys missed with his first three kicks, but as soon as the tries started flowing they looked the most likely side to win.
The Scarlets were their own worst enemies for much of the game through their poor discipline. Flanker James Davies saw yellow for a petulant no-arms tackle on Humphreys and then Wales full back Liam Williams picked up his third yellow of the season against Ulster for a dangerous tackle
The Welsh region were made to pay heavily for Davies’ indiscretion as Ulster piled on 14 unanswered points. Tommy Bowe got outside Michael Tagicakibau before floating a wonderful scoring pass inside for centre Darren Cave to score.
Cave then caused the damage when he darted between Wales duo Samson Lee and Jake Ball. Ruan Pienaar, playing for the first time this season following a knee injury, then evaded the clutches of both Aled Davies and Scott Williams to score at the posts.
Priestland almost sparked a wonderful counter-attack after dancing between four tacklers but Emyr Phillips threw a wild pass with Harry Robinson eyeing a clear run to the line. Priestland’s second penalty cut the gap to 14-6, but he missed a third on the stroke of half-time with Scarlets again down to 14 men with Williams off the field.
Priestland’s third penalty further cut the gap to five points, but the home pack raised their game and when Tommy Bowe charged into and through Liam Williams to crash over in the right corner for his 26th European try the game was up.
All that was left was to see if Ulster could pick up the bonus point. They managed to convert a close range line-out into a try for Best, while the Scarlets failed twice at the other end with the home side down to 14 men with Pienaar off the field for a deliberate knock-on.
The two teams meet again at Parc y Scarlets next weekend. When they met there at the start of the season they drew 32-32.
