Ulster ends Lions hot streak at Ellis Park

The Lions, on Cloud Nine as they travelled back from their successful three-match tour earlier this week, came crashing back down to earth at Ellis Park on Saturday.

Ulster handed them a dose of reality with a 39-37 victory in their United Rugby Championship (URC) clash that will greatly enhance the visitors’ prospects in this competition.

This was a cracking match, though not for the faint-hearted. It soon became one of survival of the fittest as the teams ran each other ragged in the suffocating highveld heat.

The more the game progressed, increasingly bodies were strewn across the park. It resembled more UFC than URC.

By the time the final quarter arrived, the appetite to chase downfield kicks had diminished. Some of the play looked like it was unfolding in ‘slow motion’ as the shadows lengthened over Ellis Park.

The knockout blow appeared to have landed when Ulster shot into a 36-18 lead after 52 minutes.

The Lions delivered a spirited-rearguard action, largely with Emmanuel Tshituka in the vanguard but they came up short.

The Ulstermen may be proficient at the game's basics, abrasive and robust in contact and adept at game management but the Lions contributed richly to their own demise.

They kicked poorly and committed far too many elementary errors.

The Lions effectively lost the match on either side of the break as Ulster scored three tries while centre Henco van Wyk served his yellow card banishment.

Unsurprisingly Ulster made most of the early running.

As early as the third minute the Lions got blindsided when they conceded a breakdown turnover on the halfway line allowing Robert Baloucoune to run half the field to score.

Ulster, organised, co-ordinated and endowed with a collective coherence, especially when the ball went to the deck, beat the Lions to the punch.

While on the back foot, the Lions, however, exacted a turnover that mattered in the 21st-minute when Tshituka unexpectedly popped up with the ball.

The ball found the hands of Francke Horn who burst into a gap and with Ulster committed to attack had no-one in back field to arrest the No.8’s charge.

For a while the Lions enjoyed the lead but it was another poor Jaco Visagie feed at a defensive line-out that handed Ulster a lifeline just before the break. From the ensuing scrum the visitors applied the squeeze. Van Wyk was yellow-carded amid all the goalline action and Billy Burns soon dotted down.

Soft moments like the one Visagie presented to the visitors, the Lions had better remove from their repertoire. It undermines so much of their honest toil.

Ulster were reinvigorated after the break and built a big lead. The Lions did well to respond but ultimately paid for their earlier sins.

Lions (37): Tries: Francke Horn (2), Emmanuel Tshituka, Andries Coetzee, Quan Horn. Conversions: Gianni Lombard, Jordan Hendrikse (2). Penalties: Lombard (2).

Ulster (39): Tries: Robert Baloucoune, Billy Burns, Rob Lyttle, Stuart McCloskey, Rob Herring. Conversions: John Cooney (3), Nathan Doak. Penalties: Cooney, Doak.