Ulster remain outside the play-off spots after being on the receiving end of one of the biggest surprises in URC history as Zebre Parma left Ravenhill with a deserving 15-14 win.
Tries from Bautista Stavile Bravin and Giacomo da Re in the space of two second half minutes helped the Italians into a deserving 15-point lead before Ulster fought their way back thanks to two Corrie Barrett efforts.
Nathan Doak was off target with a late penalty as Ulster went chasing the win. But despite one last fore into the Zebre ‘22′, the Italians hung on to register an historic win and end an away losing streak that dated back to 2020.
“Bitterly disappointed as it was a poor performance from us all the way through the park,” said a very dejected Richie Murphy afterwards.
The head coach felt that Ulster had prepared as well as they could’ve during the week despite the obstacles thrown up the weather. But it was an Ulster performance littered with errors. And the more mistakes they made, the better Zebre became.
“I suppose from my point of view we got to look at the week leading into it. We had two really good days on the Monday and Tuesday. Thursday’s training was cancelled due to the storm. Good day on Friday and turned on feeling that we were in a good place and ready to go.
“Early on in the game we talked about applying some pressure through field position, probably didn’t manage to do that well enough. Got into the ‘22′ a couple of times and two loose off-loads and a ball turned over on the try line leads to fuel the belief of the team you’re playing against. Fair play to Zebre, they deserved their win at the end.”
Ulster have been involved in a number of nail-biting finishes this season. Against heavy weights like Leinster and Munster Ulster fell at the line but they did manage to record tight wins over Connacht and reigning URC champions Glasgow.
This time however, despite being on the attack in the closing stages, Ulster came up short.
The challenge for Ulster now is to manage games better so they aren’t chasing games in the closing stages. Something which Murphy believes comes from getting off to better starts.
“You can’t keep doing that though, you know what I mean. So, if we put ourselves into those positions, you’re going to ultimately over a longer period going to come up short.
“You know, it probably doesn’t even come down to those last five minutes. What we need to do is find out why we were so far of at the start of the game. And I suppose emotionally, are we ready to face the challenge that was coming at us. We felt like we were but ultimately you see how we played; we were well short of where we needed to be.”
Last time out Ulster recorded a 52-24 win over Exeter and they came into this one as massive pre-game favourites. But Murphy quickly dismissed any notion that last week’s win may have led to compliancy creeping into his side.
“There shouldn’t be and there was no sign of that.
“But, like ultimately, we always talked about trying to keep an eye level in relation to the good and poor performances but they keep coming and we need to do something in relation to that.
“I think last week probably has a little bit of a part to play tonight but that is not a good enough excuse for professional rugby players and a professional rugby team.”
