The home side extended their unbeaten run to six games as they built on their European triumphs over Leicester Tigers and Montpellier to remain in fourth place in the RaboDirect PRO12 table. A fourth defeat in six league outings meant the Blues dropped to eighth, the lowest ranked of the Welsh regions.
Ulster stormed into a 16-3 lead thanks to the first of lock Dan Tuohy’s two tries and another touchdown from Jared Payne, but a corner try from Blues Irish No 8 Robin Copeland helped the visitors cut the deficit to five points by the break.
But it only took the home side two minutes after the restart to seize control when Luke Marshall rounded off Stuart Olding’s break with the third try of the night. The Blues lost Copeland to the sin-bin, but a Richard Smith try, converted by Leigh Halfpenny kept the in touch.
But a blistering finish saw Ulster grab the bonus point when Andrew Trimble powered over and Tuohy rounded things off with his second score.
“It’s disappointing to come here and score 21 points and not take anything back with us. We weren’t accurate enough to go away with anything, which is disappointing when you think of the effort, commitment and physicality we put in,” said Blues head coach Phil Davies.
“The players showed a lot of character to play from deep at the end, but it wasn’t enough against a strong defence and they got a couple of tries late on which lop-sided the score line a little. What we are going through is part of the growing pains of this team.
“In parts of the game we are very consistent. If we can start building that over 80 minutes we can start winning more games than we are losing. It is frustrating. You can’t fault the effort of the players, but we need more accuracy and more clinical play.”
