by Tom Pritchard
CARDIFF Blues head coach John Mulvihill lamented his side’s slow start as they suffered a 23-14 defeat against Ulster in Belfast.
The Arms Park outfit found themselves 17-0 down after just 21 minutes, and, despite scores from Aled Summerhill and Will Boyde, were unable to overturn the deficit.
Man of the Match John Cooney kicked 13 points as Ulster recorded their third win of the season in testing conditions at the Kingspan Stadium.
Mulvihill pointed towards his side’s improved second-half showing, but admitted that his team left themselves too much to do.
“It’s a very disappointed changing room. We didn’t give ourselves a chance in that first half,” said the 53-year-old.
“There were too many basic errors and a few soft tries.
“In the second half, I thought we were pretty good. We held the ball pretty well and the game plan was to hold on to the ball for longer periods of time in the right areas.”
The Blues found themselves in a similar position in their previous outing against Glasgow, where they trailed 14-0 in the opening 10 minutes before a fight-back saw them lose 17-13.
The Australian head coach explained why his team can ill afford to fall behind to quality sides, as they have done recently.
“If you give teams like Ulster and Glasgow points early on, it’s tough to play that chasing game for the rest of it.
“After being 17-points down in these conditions against a good Ulster team, it’s tough to come back from there but we gave ourselves a chance.
“We got within seven points but gave away a poor penalty and the two scores remained between the teams.”
The Blues now have consecutive home games to look forward to against the current leaders of both conferences – Munster and Toyota Cheetahs – however the former will be displaced at the top of Conference B if Scarlets beat Edinburgh on Saturday evening.
The former Western Force assistant coach is looking forward to the challenge that both sides will bring to the Welsh capital.
“We’ve had a tough start with three games away and only one at home, so we’re ready and excited to host Munster and Cheetahs over the next couple of weeks.
“They’re two teams that are on form and the both of them are top of the Conferences so it’s not going to get any easier.
“We need to dust off pretty quick, get back to training on Monday and get ourselves right.
“We’re not far from getting it right, but we’re still looking for a complete performance over 80 minutes.”
