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Watch: Ulster coach in holiday mode during final minutes of tense Champions Cup battle
By Online Editors
Some Jacob Stockdale wizardry helped Irish club Ulster hand French club Racing Metro their first Champions Cup loss in a tense battle that wasn't decided until the final minutes of the game.
However, one look at Ulster defence coach Jared Payne would tell you that the result was never in doubt as Ulster coolly completed a 26-22 victory.
The former Ireland utility, now in his first campaign in the coaches box with his former club, looked as relaxed as ever as he watched his side cling to a one-point lead with just five minutes left to play.
Ulster came out with a fast pace, scoring the first two tries to take an early 13-0 lead. Racing worked their way back into the match through tries to Viri Vakatawa and Simon Zebo to reduce the gap to 16-10.
Another try to Stockdale score pushed Ulster's lead out and missed opportunities by Racing meant the club suffered their first Champions Cup loss of the season, with the victors' playoff hopes still alive.
Ulster remain in second place in the Pool, three competition points behind Racing despite having the same win-loss record.
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Hi all. Thanks for commenting. JD is right: the headline is not mine. My headline was what ended up as the first sentence: “Why is Super Rugby Pacific so exciting this season?”. I am certainly not claiming that teams from one competition are better than the teams from another. This type of discussion is entirely subjective (as the teams do not play each other, and even with the players face each other in their national teams, it is in different systems, conditions, etc.). The season being exciting has nothing to do how well the Wallabies will do against the Lions, or against New Zealand.
My sole purpose here was to try explore quantitatively a ‘qualitative’ impression (that the season is exciting).
On Graham’s point about extreme results skewing the results, and Ed’s comment on removing outliers, this is precisely why I report the median values as well as the averages. The median is not skewed by outliers. If the margins of 5 games are 3, 4, 5, 8 and 10 points, the median margin is 5. If there was one blowout and the margins were 3, 4, 5, 8 and 57 points, the median margin is still 5.
Go to commentsPrice, venue, Hosting only done by 1 country, Profits going mostly to one country. Done in Perth…Furtherest away from NZ. Nothing works for NZR there Spew. NZR could host a Nth v Sth and make more money.
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