Dragons down poor Ulster

The Dragons kicked off their Magners League campaign with a sturdy 23-6 win over Ulster at Rodney Parade on Sunday.

Both teams were keen to make a better start than they did 12 months ago when they lost at home.

Those defeats heralded a miserable league season which saw both clubs linger down the wrong end of the table.

And this initial meeting of the new campaign took a bit of time to liven up, but was woken sharply by a fine try by the Dragons when outside-half James Arlidge cut through a gap on the right and gave a pass to wing Aled Brew to storm home from 15 metres into the corner.

Ulster hit back when the Dragons infringed 30 metres in front of their posts, making the straight-forward kick easy for outside-half Ian Humphreys.

The Dragons restored their five point advantage when Arlidge struck a 25 metre penalty.

An Ulster onslaught, led by scrum-half Isaac Boss, near the home line failed to deliver any points.

Forward battle

During the first half Ulster's forwards were turned over in the loose by the well drilled home eight and were bullied in the set-pieces.

Italian referee Carlo Damasco was busy with the whistle as the front rows went down time and again.

He eventually sent both Dragons loose-head prop Ali McKenzie and Ulster's South African tight-head BJ Botha to the sin-bin.

But, after Arlidge and Humphreys added further penalties, the Dragons got an iron grip on the match.

A superb dash through the flaky Ulster half-backs by centre Tom Riley saw him link with full-back Jason Tovey and then with wing Richard Fussell for a great touchdown.

When hooker Steve Jones slammed into Humphreys as the outside-half tried to field a high ball, centre Ashley Smith was on hand to kick upfield and drop on to score.

The match then disintegrated into an error-strewn affair as the Welsh side were able to claim a comfortable victory.