Myler Puts The Boot In As Ulster Fall Short In Swansea

It was a frustrating afternoon for Ulster as, just a week on from their heroic performance at Leinster, they fell to a frustrating 19-13 defeat to the Ospreys in Swansea.

A first-half penalty try was the scoring highlight for Dan McFarland’s men, who had 60% possession and 64% territory across the game but failed to translate that onto the scoreboard.

A try from Morgan Morris, the URC player-of-the-match, and 14 points from the reliable boot of Stephen Myler was enough to give the Ospreys their fifth victory in seven outings.

Although Ulster were only 13-10 behind at the break, they could only add a second John Cooney penalty as the Ospreys’ dogged defence – they made 246 successful tackles – and superior scrum saw them home.

On a disappointing day for the province, Stuart McCloskey, Brad Roberts and Kieran Treadwell stood out for their individual performances. Roberts and fellow hooker Tom Stewart unfortunately picked up injuries.

Giving his reaction afterwards, Ulster head coach Dan McFarland said: “We built quite a lot of pressure, we created opportunities, but we didn’t get the ball over the line.

“You can see that when you’re away from home, you have to take those opportunities and if we had taken those opportunities then it might have been a different story.

“That would have given us a lift and it would have put a bit of a dampener on them. It didn’t and so it became a bit of an arm wrestle. In the second-half we had our troubles around the scrum.

“Brad had gone off, Tom Stewart had got an injury to his foot that meant he couldn’t push properly and we started giving penalties away at the scrum.

“Eventually Tom had to go off, Eric (O’Sullivan) came on, more penalties at the scrum. Obviously he can scrum at hooker but it’s not his first position.

“Then in the last 15 minutes we had four chances to win the game and we didn’t take any of them. We had opportunities to win the game but we didn’t take them.”

Ulster had an early penalty at the breakdown for the hosts going off the feet, which Billy Burns duly kicked to touch. They enjoyed a good spell of possession as they looked to pierce some holes in the defence.

The visitors – in their saffron alternative jerseys – had a chance through Robert Baloucoune after Burns went wide with the pass, but Max Nagy and Alex Cuthbert worked well in tandem to counter-ruck and allow Luke Morgan to poach the ball.

Ulster dominated the possession and territory stats in the first 15 minutes but found it difficult to break through the Ospreys’ defensive line.

From just over five metres out, David McCann attempted to tip-on to an unopposed Angus Curtis, Luke Morgan illegally intervening with a deliberate knock-on which earned him a yellow card. Referee Sam Grove-White also awarded the penalty try.

The Ospreys quickly responded when they made a rare entry into Ulster’s half, and out-half Myler slotted over a penalty to reduce the gap to four points.

Just two minutes later, the Ospreys’ own discipline faltered, and scrum half Cooney landed the penalty to put Ulster into double figures – 10-3.

The momentum started to shift in the Welsh side’s favour and Ulster now had to defend. The Ospreys eventually got over the line through number 8 Morris – accelerating onto a Rhys Webb pass – and Myler’s conversion made it all-square.

A few minutes later, Toby Booth’s men took the lead through another Myler penalty, Ulster heading in at half-time three points behind and with recent Wales cap Roberts having limped off.

The visitors started the second period as they did the first, their forwards making hard carries with Ireland internationals Treadwell and Tom O’Toole to the fore.

They got into a great area of the field but a scrum penalty on the five-metre line allowed the Welshmen to get out of danger.

Ulster continued to have a stranglehold of possession and eventually it paid off through a Cooney penalty to level things up again at 13-all.

However, the balanced tipped once again and the Ospreys were able to get change when entering Ulster territory, The increasingly-influential Myler fired over two penalties in a six-minute spell to put them six points ahead.

The Ospreys were able to snatch the ball from Ulster at the breakdown. They sent the ball skywards and Michael Lowry made a superb break, but his offload to Baloucoune did not cleanly go to hand.

McFarland’s charges looked to come back, with Nick Timoney threatening and Ospreys replacement Reuben Morgan-Williams having a kick charged down, but the home side managed to keep them out.