ULSTER ASSISTANT COACH Dan Soper admitted they weren’t happy with their performance against the Dragons at Kingspan Stadium, conceding they weren’t clinical enough despite scoring six tries on their way to a 40-19 bonus-point win.
The province are up to second in the United Rugby Championship after their fourth straight league victory in the race for home advantage in the semi-finals, although the third-placed DHL Stormers are only three points behind with a game in hand against Munster on Saturday.
Hooker Tom Stewart crossed for a second consecutive hat-trick in domestic play, with David McCann, Nick Timoney and a penalty try accounting for their other scores, but Ulster didn’t have it all their own way against a stubborn Dragons outfit.
The Welsh side pulled it back to within a score with a quarter of the game to go thanks to two tries in two minutes and were well in the game, only for Timoney’s try to seal the win and the penalty try to add some gloss to the scoreline.
And Soper was less than impressed with what was on display, admitting that they ranged from excellent – with Stewart’s third score particularly eye-catching – to rather poor throughout the 80 minutes.
“That was a bit of a mixed bag, wasn’t it? Some really excellent stuff at times and at other times we were a bit loose and they got at our breakdown. Mixed bag but we got the job done and got five points, so we’re pleased about that,” he said.
“We probably at times weren’t quite clinical enough with the ball. Gilly’s (Craig Gilroy) got over the line twice and both tries were ruled out.
“There were lots of good things and evidence of things we’ve been working on but we just weren’t quite clinical enough with the ball, and talking to Dinger (defence coach Jonny Bell) there were some things he wasn’t happy with on defence.
“We had a couple really good sets after half-time but I know he was pretty disappointed with how we gave them access soft. We didn’t exit from our area well despite the conditions ending up being pretty good.
“They kept it tight and made it nervy, but John Andrew’s first two touches were pretty nice and Ethan McIlroy’s first touch to score the try was nice. We felt we had plays in us to get scores but at times we weren’t clinical enough to keep our foot on the throat.”
When posed with the possibility that Ulster might have been slightly undercooked having had last week off following their European exit at the hands of Leinster a week prior, Soper balked at the possibility, insisting they were not looking for excuses.
“We’re well used to the team changing or having a week off. That’s not an excuse,” he retorted. “We need to be better as a team at striving to nail our fundamentals. If we can do that then we can play some good footy.”
Ulster will be sweating over the availability of Ireland tighthead prop Tom O’Toole, who lasted just five minutes of the game before limping off and was later spotted on the touchline in crutches, although Soper did reveal that it was likely only a precautionary measure.
With Marty Moore out until the end of the season, were O’Toole to join him it would leave Ulster’s tighthead stocks relatively bare heading into the play-offs as, behind the impressive Jeff Toomaga-Allen, the only other option would be the relatively unused Gareth Milasinovich.