Rugby

Dan McFarland: Cheetahs to pose stiffer test than Ospreys for Ulster rugby

Ulster’s Matt Faddes goes over for his first against Ospreys in the PRO14 Tournament on Friday September 27 2019 at Kingspan Ravenhill, Belfast. Picture by Hugh Russell.
Ulster’s Matt Faddes goes over for his first against Ospreys in the PRO14 Tournament on Friday September 27 2019 at Kingspan Ravenhill, Belfast. Picture by Hugh Russell. Ulster’s Matt Faddes goes over for his first against Ospreys in the PRO14 Tournament on Friday September 27 2019 at Kingspan Ravenhill, Belfast. Picture by Hugh Russell.

ULSTER will head to South Africa later this week in upbeat mood after an impressive 38-14 opening PRO14 win over the Ospreys at Kingspan Stadium on Friday night.

Head coach Dan McFarland had plenty to smile about after the game although he realises that the Cheetahs will probably pose a stiffer test on Saturday following their big win over Glasgow Warriors before Ulster face Southern Kings a week later in what should be a less difficult encounter.

In Friday night's game, Ulster were without their three World Cup players and that became four when Jordi Murphy was withdrawn before eventually flying out to Japan to replace the injured Jack Conan.

The Welsh side were more seriously depleted with 10 players on World Cup duty but McFarland was happy with the performance after his side recovered from a shaky start, trailing 8-0 early on.

Ulster went on to run in five tries, two of them scored by fit-again winger Craig Gilroy, who celebrated his return from an 11 month injury lay-off in style.

But the star of the show was fly-half Billy Burns, who was the orchestrator-in -chief with his intelligent cross-kicking which set up both of Gilroy's touch downs.

"Billy’s got a good eye for that and there aren’t many players in the game who see those opportunities and execute them as well as he does," said McFarland.

"If you remember back to the Champions Cup game against Racing last season and the classic Jacob (Stockdale) try where he (Billy) kicked from left to right for Gilly to catch and then we recycled the ball and he kicked right to left for Jacob to score.

"We've got two wingers out there who have got to be marked, haven't they, they've got to be tackled. They are dangerous, dangerous players with the ball and not too shabby in defence either.

"We have a luxury of wingers when you think think about it. Jacob is out there at the World Cup in Japan.

"Then when you add Rob Balacoune, Adders (Will Addison) can play on the wing, and we've Angus Kernohan and a couple of young fellas coming through so we have some wide players who can add a bit of sparkle."

Defensively, McFarland was reasonably happy as he looked ahead to the Cheetahs game, especially after Ulster conceded three maul tries against Glasgow in a pre-season friendly.

"That was basically the Ospreys' game, to try and maul us so to stop that was good," said the Englishman.

"Having said that, we gave away a couple of penalties out-field so our maul defence there wasn’t what it should be.

"We go to the Cheetahs next and I’ve already had a peek and they scored a maul try against Glasgow.

"Last year when we were over there they scored two maul tries against us and I think Rob Herring got sent to the sin-bin so that’s going to be a big element in the game.

"Everyone thinks that the Cheetahs are footloose and fancy free but they’ve got a set-piece as well."