Anscombe Concerned At Manner Of Defeat

Ulster head coach Mark Anscombe struggled to hide his frustration after watching his team suffer a 20-14 defeat away to Glasgow Warriors on Friday evening.

Despite the loss at Scotstoun Stadium, table toppers Ulster still have a three-point gap over their rivals in the RaboDirect PRO12 standings.

Glasgow outscored the visitors on Friday by four tries to one and Mark Anscombe believes basic errors and a lack of intensity cost his side.

“Our execution was poor at times. We conceded a couple of soft tries – a charge down when we had plenty of time to clear it, a ball taken from the base of the scrum, there’s two tries that should never have been scored. It was pretty feeble to be honest,” he said.

“It starts up front and they created a platform to be able to go forward. If you don’t win quality possession then you’re in a battle.

“The attack was pretty average, it lacked any purpose and punch and we drifted sideways. We didn’t take our chances, a silly forward pass when we should have scored. We have to be more clinical when the opportunity presents itself.”

He continued: “There’s not too much to be positive about. We have too many guys that are drifting through the season and not accepting the role that they’ve got to do.”

Three penalties from Ruan Pienaar and a Stuart Olding try – his first at senior level for Ulster – gave the province what could prove to be a valuable losing bonus point.

“If you’re going to lose you at least want to get a bonus point out of it. We’ll certainly take that after that performance,” added the New Zealander.

“The concern is not so much that we’re losing, it’s how we’re losing. I don’t think we’re putting the opposition under enough pressure and asking enough questions of them.”

Anscombe is not expecting things to get any easier when Benetton Treviso visit Ravenhill next Friday – Ulster edged their most recent league encounter 16-15 back in November.

“They nearly beat us last time so unless we get our act together and perform better we’re going to be in for another long night. They’re not going to come over and lay down, so we’ve got to be more urgent in what we do.”