After shipping five tries in last weeks’ defeat to the Lions, Mike Lowry says that Ulster need to improve on their fundamentals if they are to achieve a better result this Saturday when the square up to the Bulls in Loftus Versfeld, Pretoria.
The big takeaway for Ulster last week was how they continually gave the ball away cheaply.
“Too be honest I think we were pretty disappointed with a lot of things from the game that just, really aren’t good enough,” said Lowry.
“In terms of fundamentals, that we needed to get right that we just didn’t. We just gave them access to it, and we probably slipped off too many tackles as well. And that’s an individual fundamental skill of rugby.
“Same as giving them too many turnovers. We gave them too much ball to be able to attack. And if you are giving a team that many opportunities, with the amount of quality players now, it’s really difficult to be able to keep teams out if you are giving them the ball 18, 20 times.
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“We gave them too much access and really good teams will just score against you. There is just too many good attacks that you can’t afford to give them too much access,” added the Ulster full-back.
Much of the pre-match talk centred around the conditions with altitude being very much the buzz word.
Playing at altitude presents many different challenges. The ball travels further from kicks and can also bounce a lot higher which for someone in Lowry’s position of full-back, can lead to some nightmare scenarios. There is also the factor of the games being played in temperatures as high as 28 degrees.
But as Lowry stresses, Ulster must not get sucked in to thinking about the conditions and stay focused on their own game plan. Just a few years ago Ulster left the southern hemisphere with two-wins; which made them the first visiting URC team to South Africa to do so.
“I think we’ve talked about altitude being a big factor. But we still have to focus on what we want to do and worry about the altitude too much. We’ve a game plan that we have to execute and that’s our main focus. But it’s going to be difficult no matter what.
“As I said earlier, the altitude is sort of another cherry on top but the conditions over in South Africa are always pretty difficult. It’s always a pretty tough place to come and get a result. I think we were the first to do the double in South Africa, so we know how tough it is.
But these are the sort of challenges that Lowry thrives on, and this Saturday he’ll be hoping that his teammates also rise to the challenge.
“I’m really looking forward to another challenge, again. I think we have a lot to prove on after the weekend. It’s exciting that we get another chance to show what we can do out here.”
