ULSTER COACH MARK Anscombe was in no mood to mince his words after Ulster eked out a 13 – 6 win over Zebre on a stormy night at Ravenhill.
Speaking with the BBC post-match, Anscombe was furious as he listed off the problems he witnessed on what he called the northern province’s ‘worst performance of the season’.
“We didn’t look after the ball, our defence was slow – we didn’t get up there – we were slow to reload, we weren’t creating any go-forward ball…. it was horrible.”
The Kiwi made mention of the ‘ unfathomable’ refereeing of the breakdown, but on a night when he rotated his squad to afford opportunities to Ricky Andrew, Michael Allen, James McKinney and Niall Annett, his most harsh words were reserved for his senior players:
“For young guys to take their chance they need experienced guys to do their job and that was questionable today as well.”
Having thrashed Treviso on consecutive Heineken Cup weekends, Ulster were trailing 6 – 0 when Jared Payne touched down the only try of the night after 30 minutes and the victory was not secured until Ruan Pienaar kicked his second penalty of the night eight minutes from time.
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“It was pretty damn horrible actually,” said Anscombe to sum up the night before he readies his team for a post-Christmas trip to face Leinster at the RDS.
“We just weren’t urgent enough to make things happen. That was a really flat performance.
“We dodged a bullet there tonight. Not a good performance. We got the win, I don’t think there’s anything else positive I can say.”
