We might have known Ulster would somehow find it within themselves to fall short again, by a margin of 17-15 to the Stormers in Cape Town. There will be no hiding place in this inquest and another failure can no longer be explained away by mere misfortune, Ulster’s inability to navigate a route towards taking ownership of silverware is beginning to look ingrained in their very psyche.
With a final back in Belfast beckoning, albeit against a re-energised Bulls, leading with the clock in red and against a far from assured looking Stormers side reduced to 14 for the closing stages of this unsurprisingly edgy semi-final, the northern province surrendered an initiative which had remained theirs for decent enough parts of this contest.
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It was painful viewing as Dan McFarland’s side were unable to close things out courtesy of the unexpected emergence of set-piece and handling inaccuracy, along with game-management issues, a failure to turn their pressure moments into points throughout a second half during which there were no scores registered by either side until the 84th minute.
That Ulster also looked spent in those final frantic minutes with the Stormers camped near their line also suggested that the cross-hemisphere travel – they had only arrived in Cape Town on Wednesday – may well have caught up with a starting side which McFarland seemed loathe to replenish from his admittedly not hugely impactful-looking bench which only saw late arrivals from Ian Madigan, Eric O’Sullivan, Mattie Rea and Gareth Milasinovich. Neither John Andrew nor Nathan Doak were involved at all.
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Even then, Warrick Gelant’s 84th minute try only tied the scores meaning that Manie Libbok needed the conversion – by no means a gimme and especially not for a player who had already been wide with two conversions, a drop goal and had put a penalty to the corner dead – which to his credit was slotted though the evidence was by no means compelling that the ball had bisected the uprights, prompting several Ulster players to remonstrate with officials.
In fairness, had Libbok been wide it was doubtful that Ulster would have had anything left in the tank for extra time and, even if they had somehow come through, the northern province then faced another long-haul flight back home to ironically face more South Africans in the shape of former star player Marcell Coetzee and a Bulls side which had so effectively slayed Leinster in their own back yard.
Still, none of that will offer the merest crumb of consolation. Ulster could and probably should have won this semi-final. That they didn’t will be enormously damaging never mind that their trophyless run will now stretch to 17 years before anything might appear on the sideboard.
Cape Town 2022 can be added to a lengthening charge sheet which includes the Challenge Cup semi-final failure at Leicester last year, Leinster at the Aviva in 2019′s European Cup quarter-final and the league semi of 2015 in Glasgow.
All were occasions when Ulster managed to lose when seemingly on the very cusp of ingesting victory with three of these meltdowns being on McFarland’s watch.
Indeed, the way their 2015 failure at Scotstoun went awry had some eerie parallels to what occurred last Saturday, Ulster losing a lead in the dying moments and exiting thanks to a last-gasp conversion with the prize being a final back in Belfast.
All told, they have now lost eight from 10 semi-final ties in the league which is also grim reading.
Afterwards, it was understandably difficult for Iain Henderson to compute what had gone wrong for yet another season.
“In that second half we scored zero points and to win a game you need to score points,” said the skipper.
“I think there were just small errors where we didn’t convert when we had opportunities, in other games gone by when we have played slightly better, we come away with three, five or seven points visiting an opposition’s third of the pitch or the 22 so that is where we need to fix things.”
McFarland, though, was rather more forthright: “We didn’t deserve to win that game.
“We turned the ball over so many times that I actually felt they (the Stormers) were going to end up winning because you can’t afford at semi-final level to be so profligate with the ball.”
After quickfire tries from JJ Kotze and Evan Roos had put the Stormers 10-0 up, Ulster roared back through Robert Baloucoune – it looked to be a forward pass – who limped off later in the game and Stewart Moore with John Cooney converting the latter and then slotting a 40th minute penalty to give Ulster a 15-10 lead at the break.
But Ulster failed to capitalise on this even after lock Adre Smith was red carded for a 70th minute gouge on Henderson and as they tired the Stormers finally found a way to nail down another home win and host Saturday’s final.
All this just as news broke of Duane Vermeulen’s omission from the Springboks’ squad for their Test season though that will have barely registered as Ulster limp their way home.
