Ulster\u2019s pre-season had been full of optimism as they began a season looking to reach the top eight of the URC for the first time in three years.<\/p>\n
Ten minutes into the second half of the opening game, they found themselves 34-5 behind to an Edinburgh side without many of their Scottish internationals. <\/p>\n
Ulster were missing quite a few as well and were giving debuts to eight players, six of them new signings, but that should not be an excuse for such a slow start especially at home on opening night.<\/p>\n
Head coach Richie Murphy summed it up well, calling it a “massively disappointing” night.<\/p>\n
“There were 11,500 people turned up tonight to support their team. They only saw them for 15 minutes when it’s an 80-minute game,” he continued.<\/p>\n
“That’s probably what hurts the most. We have to live with that and make sure we try and fix a few things before we go to Glasgow away next week.”<\/p>\n
Edinburgh attacked from the first whistle, stretching Ulster\u2019s defence from touchline to touchline as they probed for weakness.<\/p>\n
For a while they couldn\u2019t find any but as Ulster\u2019s lineout capitulated, they eventually did.<\/p>\n
How dominant were Edinburgh? When they opened the scoring after 19 minutes they had 76% possession and 84% territory.<\/p>\n
With only Lowry\u2019s try to show for one of only three ventures into the Edinburgh 22, Ulster found themselves 20-5 down at half-time and whatever was said in the dressing room, it didn\u2019t appear to seep in as Edinburgh scored two beautiful tries in the opening 10 minutes after the interval.<\/p>\n
The visitors, however, had an Achilles’ heel themselves. Last season they had lost five games after leading with 20 minutes remaining.<\/p>\n
An influx of replacements for Ulster turned the game and almost the result.<\/p>\n
Zac Ward, Matt Devine, Henry Walker and Keynan Knox in particular made a difference as Ulster found their legs and the crowd their voices.<\/p>\n
Three tries, all well worked, and a penalty for 24 unanswered points, but they still came up short.<\/p>\n
They did secure two bonus points and can take the positives on the road to Glasgow next week.<\/p>\n
Ulster: Lowry; Baloucoune, Carson, Benson, King; Murphy, McKee; O\u2019Sullivan, McCormick, Bello; Snyman, Donnell; McCann, Moloney, McNabney<\/p>\n
Replacements: Walker, Mcallister, Knox, Sheridan, McKillop, Stewart, Devine, Flannery, Ward<\/p>\n
Edinburgh: O\u2019Conor; Satala-Navlivou, Currie, Higgins, Gwynn; Grayson, Patterson; Hepburn, Morris, Hill; Hunter-Hill, Young; McConnell, Douglas, Bradbury<\/p>\n
Replacements: Blyth-Lafferty, Whitcombe, Rae, McVie, Currie, McAlpine, Scott, McHaffie<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ulster\u2019s pre-season had been full of optimism as they began a season looking to reach the top eight…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":782991,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[59,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-782990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-gb","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=782990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/782991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=782990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=782990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=782990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}