A FRUSTRATED Ruan Pienaar says Ulster have spent the past few days soul-searching after the latest dent to their PRO12 hopes.
Scarlets inflicted a second home league defeat of the campaign upon the Kingspan men last Sunday, coming away with a 21-20 win to leave Ulster fourth in the table. Pienaar made a late introduction, but it wasn’t enough to prevent the Welsh visitors leapfrogging their hosts in the table.
Ulster now head to Cardiff on Sunday looking to shake off the frustrations of another display of poor finishing: “Obviously, it’s disappointing, especially losing at home. This is a place where we pride ourselves and back ourselves to put up good performances," Pienaar said.
“To be honest, we probably haven’t done as well at home this season as we would have liked to. We have a tough one away to Cardiff this week, but everyone’s excited to get going again. We still have loads to play for. That’s the beauty of rugby, you always get another chance. Seven days is a long time. The guys have done a lot of soul-searching and a lot of analysis. We need to have a good look at ourselves, hopefully that will show on the pitch on Sunday.”
The Ospreys’ win over Edinburgh and Glasgow’s Friday night victory against Munster at least afforded Les Kiss’ side the luxury of hanging on to their top four spot. Those results gave them a bit of breathing space, and they sit eight points clear of fifth-placed Edinburgh with seven games left to play.
So they remain looking ahead rather than over their shoulders and scrum-half Pienaar says they are not giving up hope of claiming a home semi-final: “We’ve always gotta hope and work for that. There’s a lot of tough games to play as you said, but this game on Sunday is our main focus, get a good performance in and build momentum from there.
“The last month has been a bit frustrating. We’re creating a lot of chances and not finishing them, so that’s an area we need to improve in. We need to show a bit more patience, keep the ball, keep control of it and make better decisions.”
A virus had kept Pienaar out of action in recent weeks, though he was able to return to the side for their recent 13-10 win over Glasgow. He played the last 20 minutes at the Kingspan last weekend and the South African admits it has been a frustrating time personally.
“Yeah, it was man down for a couple of days. I don’t know what it was but it wasn’t pleasant. I’m slowly getting back to full fitness," he said.
“It’s been a frustrating month for me I guess, and I’m just excited to being back playing and looking forward to feeling 100 per cent again. Hopefully I can get a good couple of performances in the back end of the season.”
Meanwhile, Sean Reidy and Ricky Lutton both signed new deals to keep them at the Kingspan. Flanker Reidy (26) has signed a two-year extension, while 26-year-old tighthead prop Lutton has signed on for another year.
