ULSTER COACH RICHIE Murphy is an investor in the character and fitness of his teams, which was why he was proud of their effort against the Bulls at Loftus Versfeld in Pretoria on Saturday, despite their 34-26 loss that keeps them winless after four rounds of the United Rugby Championship.

The tourists found themselves in typically brutal conditions in the Highveld summer – 33 degrees of heat allied to an altitude of 1350m – and when they went 21-0 down after 32 minutes, few would have given them a chance of slowing down the Bulls machine, let alone beating it.

But Ulster showed character, scoring on the half-time hooter and then dominating the second half to go into the last 10 minutes just 26-31 down. And they finished strongly too, with replacement back rower James McKillop galloping away for what seemed the match-winning try, only for the officials to disallow the score because centre Stuart McCloskey’s boot had just brushed the touchline before he could get his pass away.

It was only a long-range penalty after the hooter by Bulls replacement fly-half Curwin Bosch that denied them a well-deserved second bonus point.

“We had a couple of good chances to win the match; if Stuart had not been just a fraction out on the left touchline then we would have been in the lead going into the last two minutes. But I’m really proud that we did not roll over in really harsh weather and at altitude. And the Bulls are a good team who love being at Loftus,” Murphy said.

Richie Murphy. Christiaan Kotze Christiaan Kotze

“And at the end we didn’t look out on our feet, our fitness levels were able to stand until the end. We’ve done a lot of pre-season work on that and the culture of this team is not to roll over. They are all very proud of playing for Ulster and each other, and I think you can see that from that performance.”

The Bulls hit Ulster hard early on, scoring their first try in the second minute, and Murphy said it was a case of the team moving away from their pre-planned strategy.

“There was a way we wanted to play today, to help us handle the heat and humidity, but we went away from that earlier. It was better towards the end of the first half and in the second half. But we struggled at the start to get a foothold in the game, and they were able to put us under pressure.

“The Bulls had about 65% of possession, which made it hard, and we did a really good job of keeping them out. Everyone knew coming here that the scrum would be under pressure, but it held up reasonably well. All the penalties in the first half, our ability to hold on to the ball in multiphase and our turnovers being too much are what we need to improve.

“We’ve drawn two and lost two now in this competition, but our opposition have all been top teams. Long-term we will really benefit from these tight battles. We just need to keep putting ourselves in these situations and learn our lessons from them. We want to make sure we finish top-eight and I think we’ll be there at the end,” Murphy said.