Cape Town — “In my head, we won that game.”
Those were the words of Ulster coach Dan McFarland after their 23-20 United Rugby Championship defeat against the Stormers at Cape Town Stadium on Saturday.
It was a thrilling encounter that went down to the whistle, and after a solid opening-half performance by the Stormers, the Irish side didn’t fade away after the break as we’ve seen from the European sides over the last couple of weeks in South Africa. They actually looked better in the second half.
Trailing by three points with less than two minutes to go, replacement prop Callum Reid got the ball over the tryline before he lost control of it after it was knocked from his grasp. Referee Gianluca Gnecchi awarded the Stormers a scrum after ruling that it was knocked on by the prop.
Speaking after the game, McFarland voiced his frustrations.
“I can’t understand why that’s not a try,” he said. “I’ve got to be careful what I say here, but I can’t understand why that’s not a try.
“If it’s not a try, then why is it a knock-on [against Ulster]? They deliberately knocked the ball out of our hands. I don’t get that. I’ll wait to hear what they have to say about it.”
“In my head, we won that game, so we will move on,” he continued. “We don’t have the four log points, but there were a lot of positives.”
Commenting on their game overall, he said: “We got hit early. It was good play by them [in that period] and poor play by us. We grew as the game progressed. Our aerial game in particular. We also managed to generate a lot of momentum close to the line.
“We put good pressure on them and then scored a good try at the end.”
IOL Sport