Tries in the final seven minutes from India Daley and Stacey Sloan secured a dramatic late comeback for Ulster as they rescued a 25-25 draw from their Inter-Provincial Championship clash with Connacht at Ravenhill.
Murray Houston’s girls looked to be heading for a second straight defeat after last week’s loss to Munster in Cork, but they showed remarkable resolve to rescue two points from the tie.
Connacht, led by the excellent Faith Oviawe, looked to be on their way to the maximum haul thanks to a double from full-back Meabh Deely and further tries from Oviawe and Loaise McGonagle.
But Ulster never said die and kept in touch through two Abby Moyles penalties and a second-half Lucy Thompson try before that remarkable fourth quarter finish.
The home side, buoyed by their strong performance against Munster a week prior, started strongly and they led early through two Moyles penalties either side of Deely’s first try for the visitors, good work by late replacement Hannah Clarke allowing her to stride over in the corner.
Connacht would lead at the break, though, as Oviawe gave them a 10-6 lead at half-time when she was set into space by a creative off-load and she had enough strength to hand-off Moyles and pace to beat the covering defence and dive over by the corner flag.
And it seemed like Connacht had done enough in the opening 12 minutes of the second half to secure all five points as they ran in their third and fourth tries, an Orla Dixon off-load putting McGonagle over just two minutes after the restart and then a wonderful strike-move from a scrum seeing Deely dive under the posts for her second.
But between those scores, Ulster had kept themselves in it when Thompson grabbed arguably the score of the game as she finished a brilliant solo effort, dancing down the touchline to evade several would be tacklers to cross and set up the grandstand finish.
Led by the irrepressible Brittany Hogan, it would be Daley who would spark belief that a comeback was on as Hogan carried off a quick tap penalty under the posts and the hooker finished it off from all of a metre out, and then replacement back row Sloan was able to muscle over from close range shortly after for their third try.
And it was another substitute, Vicky Irwin, who held her nerve with the tricky conversion to earn the home side a well-deserved draw, although Connacht would be the slightly happier of the sides having taken home an extra point for notching four tries.
Ulster finish their campaign against Leinster at Ravenhill on Saturday August 24 at 4:45pm.
ULSTER: (15-9) L Farrell-McCabe; L Thompson, C Martin, T O’Neill, P McAlister; A Moyles, K Dane; (1-8) B Cassidy, I Daley, S Barrett; B Barr, C O’Kane; M Hill, M Clenaghan, B Hogan.
Replacements: C Hill, M Brodie, A Fannin, G McCamley, S Sloan, R McIlroy, P Smyth, V Irwin.
CONNACHT: (15-9) M Deely; H Clarke, O Dixon, E Nic Dhonnacha, L McGonagle; N Fowley, G Moran; (1-8) E Burns, L Brady, M Collis; K Tierney, G Browne Moran; F Oviawe, B Gleeson, S Touhey.
Replacements: S Hanley, H Lowney, R Maher, J Adams Verling, R Searle, M Goulding, A Ryder, C Barrett.