Leinster turn on style to power past Ulster

Leinster 57-5 Ulster

Leinster rebounded from last week's losing start to the Vodafone Women's Interprovincial Championship with a resounding 57-5 bonus-point victory over Ulster at Energia Park.

Ireland backs Natasja Behan and Leah Tarpey were both prominent on their Leinster senior debuts, helping Tania Rosser's charges to surge 33 points clear by half-time.

Christy Haney (2), Ruth Campbell, Aimee Clarke and Molly Boyne all touched down amid some impressively built attacking phases.

Captain Hannah O'Connor was on conversion duty, kicking five in all.Two of the tries came after Ulster captain Beth Cregan's sin-binning on the half hour mark, and the visitors also missed the physical presence of injured forwards Sadhbh McGrath and Fiona Tuite.

The third quarter was more evenly matched with Vodafone player-of-the-match Katie Whelan and Niamh Marley, Ulster's right winger, trading well-taken scores.

A spate of yellow cards - three in a seven-minute spell - saw Leinster lose Aoife Dalton, Campbell and Haney to the sin bin, but they still had more in the tank and topped up their try haul to nine.

Ahead of next Saturday's crunch clash with Munster in Donnybrook, young centre Tarpey turned Ailsa Hughes' brilliant blindside break into a try, and Eimear Corri and Aoife Wafer snapped up two late efforts.

Two swift penalties had the Leinster pack hunting down an early try, and it arrived five minutes in when prop Haney, a co-captain last season, powered in under the posts for O'Connor to convert.

The hosts' momentum was briefly halted by Clare Gorman's injury-enforced departure, and a territory-starved Ulster drew some much-needed encouragement from India Daley's turnover penalty.

O'Connor sent a kickable penalty wide for the Blues whose