Ulster confirm play-off spot

Spence: Two first-half scores

Ulster will make the trip to Leinster for the Magners League semi-finals after rounding off the regular season with victory in Wales.

The Northern Irishmen overcame the Dragons 20-13, although Leinster's victory over Glasgow secured them home territory in the play-offs.

But Ulster upheld their part of the bargain by scoring three tries before half-time to set up the win.

Centre Nevin Spence crossed twice in the space of 13 minutes while back rower Pedrie Wannenberg added the third just before the interval.

The first score of the match arrived when Spence picked the ball up in the middle of the Rodney Parade pitch and dashed to the right, diving in at the corner while Dragons full-back Steffan Jones desperately tried to put him into touch.

Jones booted the Dragons' first points with a 16th-minute penalty, but Ulster soon extended their lead.

Full-back Adam D'Arcy almost went over in the corner but when he was tackled by wing Aled Brew, he managed to feed the ball back for Spence to collect and drop over the line for his second.

Uphill

The Dragons' problems were aggravated when a long line-out throw was not collected by Gavin Thomas. Wannenberg, who was inspirational throughout, grabbed the ball and powered past James Tovey to make Ian Humphreys' first conversion of the game simple.

Fly-half Tovey reduced the home side's arrears to 14 points by the break but the Dragons were still facing an uphill battle to get any kind of reward from the match.

After a slow 10 minutes at the start of the second period, the Dragons piled on the pressure as Ulster went off the boil.

The hosts had the Irishmen in their own 22 for five minutes and were rewarded when scrum-half Wayne Evans fed Jones before he gave a scoring pass to centre Riley.

Jones' conversion made it 20-13 but that was the end of the scoring as the defences of both teams held firm to the final whistle.

The result gave the Dragons a losing bonus point but could not improve their final finishing place of seventh, the lowest of the Welsh regions.