ULSTER HEAD COACH Dan McFarland has called on his side to be more ruthless after they failed to pick up a bonus point in their dominant victory over the Southern Kings.

The northern province thoroughly controlled proceedings, commanding 68% of possession and 73% of the territory, and besides a short stint either side of half-time they were rarely tested in Port Elizabeth.

Despite that, Ulster only scored their first try shortly after the hour mark and couldn’t find three more in the final 20 minutes despite continuing to boast the lion’s share of possession and territory.

Admittedly, it was tough for Ulster to gain any momentum in the game when the Kings repeatedly infringed any time the Irish side were in the red zone, but the chances were still there for them.

It led a frustrated McFarland to demand more accuracy from his side when they play the second of their South African clashes in Bloemfontein next week against the Cheetahs.

“When you’re playing in a match that’s so stop-start because of the amount of penalties then it’s difficult to get any momentum going,” admitted McFarland, who is still unbeaten since taking over at Kingspan Stadium.

“The difficulty for us is I think we had two penalties against us in the first half and one of ours was a yellow card. That made it difficult for us, but that’s not to say we couldn’t have been better.

“I felt that we created enough opportunities in the first half that, if we had been a bit more ruthless in what we’d been doing, we’d have got a couple of tries.”

However, the Englishman refused to lay the blame at the feet of referee Sam Grove-White who not only seemed keen to blow his whistle, but also seemed rather quick to go to his pocket when Ulster infringed.

“We have to play the game as it is, that’s the way it is and that’s what happened,” insisted McFarland.

I’ll go back to what I said: we have to be ruthless in what we’re doing if we want to take advantage of the dominance we had in possession, territory and line-breaks. We have to be more ruthless.

“It’s difficult when there are a lot of infringements in the game, but it’s up to us to make our dominance count.”

Among the positives was Marcell Coetzee, who played his first 80 minutes of the season and put in a Man of the Match performance thanks to some rampaging carrying and adding a try to boot.

With Jordi Murphy not in South Africa due to injury, Coetzee’s importance to Ulster’s back row becomes even more paramount, and McFarland was delighted to see him getting back to his best.

And, even more worryingly for opposition sides, the coach believes there’s still plenty more to come.

“Marcell really wanted to do well back in his home country, he’s a very proud South African and he represents Ulster with pride as well, so it was a real boost for him to come down here and play,” enthused McFarland.

“It was great to see him play 80 minutes, he isn’t at his best yet, we’ll see the best out of him going forward, but it was great to see him out there carrying ball like he can.”

Even though the result perhaps wasn’t what Ulster were expecting, McFarland still believes that they showed enough to suggest that next week will have a similar result.

Alan O’Connor joins Martinus Burger in the sin-bin Richard Huggard / INPHO Richard Huggard / INPHO / INPHO

With a five-day turnaround, one of which is a travel day from Port Elizabeth to Bloemfontein, Ulster will only have two training days in which to improve to tackle their next opponents.

The Cheetahs have been suffering from a bit of second season syndrome, losing heavily in their opening three games and dropping their home opener to the Glasgow Warriors last weekend.

Having been so fearsome at the Toyota Stadium last season, the Cheetahs seem there for the taking, and McFarland is confident that the improvements will be there in time for Ulster to make it four from four to start the campaign.

Unsurprisingly, ruthlessness is mentioned again.

“We have to be ruthless in our efficiency at the breakdown and I think that’ll help. That takes time,” states McFarland.

“I believe we are improving there, and as we move forward the kind of game we want to play requires us to be ruthless there, so we’ll keep working on that.

“It’s a five-day turnaround, are we going to get magical differences? No. Do I think that’s going to be the key determinant in the game next week? No, I think we’ll be able to get the improvements necessary to be able to get the result next week.”

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