John Cooney the hero as Ulster snatch dramatic win v Cardiff

When the dust settles on the BKT United Rugby Championship regular season, this could prove to be a very valuable Ulster win.

A slow, scrappy game ultimately had an explosive ending; Cardiff's Theo Cabangio sprinting into the Ulster corner to score what he thought was a hat-trick try, to seal what we thought was a first Cardiff win in Belfast since 2010.

Moments later, Kingspan Stadium was celebrating an unlikely but vital 19-17 win. As Cardiff were joyous at one end of the pitch, referee Mike Adamson was checking with the score with the TMO. Cabango’s breakaway try came from a spilled Ulster ball deep in the Welsh side’s 22, and the replay showed it came from a deliberate knock-on by Rhys Carre.

The try was chalked off, and Cooney drilled the winning points between the posts to make it 19-17.

It was appropriate that the scrum-half would kick the winning points, his introduction early in the second half put some spark into what had been a lethargic Ulster display, which hadn't been helped by the absence Iain Henderson, Stuart McCloskey, Rob Herring and Steven Kitshoff amongst others.

They trailed for the majority of the game, with a pair of tries for Welsh wing Cabango seeing Cardiff lead 14-6 after 42 minutes.

A poor quality first half had been marred by injuries, with Ulster’s James Hume going off with what looks like a serious knee injury, before Taulupe Faletau’s return from a six-month layoff with a broken arm ended with a recurrence of that issue.

Dave McCann’s try got Ulster back into it midway through the second half, while Cooney added a further penalty to nudge them 16-14 ahead.

Tinus de Beer quickly responded with a penalty for the Welsh to restore their slender advantage, before the mayhem of the final minutes saw