Ulster Ravens 21 London Welsh 17:ULSTER RAVENS edged an important win over London Welsh to put themselves in pole position for a semi-final place.

Niall O’Connor gave the Ravens the lead in the first minute with a penalty and things got better for the home side when Paul Marshall scored from the restart.

O’Connor converted and landed his second penalty on 11 minutes after the visitors collapsed scrum.

The visitors had Gordon Ross sin-binned on 17 minutes for killing the ball and O’Connor scored from the resulting penalty.

The English side registered their first points on 33 minutes when Ed Lewis-Pratt landed a penalty.

London Welsh finished the first half the stronger and reduced Ulster’s interval lead to 16-11 by scoring eight points in the last four minutes of the opening period.

Marshall had a kicked charged down under his own posts, the visitors moved it wide and Neil Starling went over and Pratt slotted over another penalty.

Timoci Nagusa got the Ravens second try when he ran in from his own 10-metre line but O’Connor missed the conversion.

Ross landed two penalties as the visitors kept the pressure on.

RAVENS: M McCrea; T Seymour, M Allen, I Whitten, T Nagusa; N O’Connor, P Marshall; B Young, N Brady (capt), T Court, N McComb, R Caldwell, T Anderson, W Faloon, R Diack. Replacements: Andy Kyriacou, Alan Whitten, Ed O’Donoghue, David Pollock, Cillian Willis, Ian Humphreys, Darren Cave.

LONDON WELSH: E Lewis-Pratt; P Sampson, N Starling, S Whatling, E Claassens; G Ross, B Stevenson; D Williams, G O’Meara, M Holford, M Corker, M Powell, J Mills (capt), M Hills, T Brown. Replacements: C Whitehead, L Ward, N Bonner-Evans, L Beach, R Lewis, P Mackey, D Shabbo.