VERY SERIOUS

ULSTER head coach Jono Gibbes admits the province are in a “serious situation” in the Guinness Pro 14 following Saturday’s 34-10 defeat to Scarlets in Llanelli.

The Kingspan Stadium men lie five points outside the top three play-off spots in Conference B heading into a tough run-in, with three of their last five games away from home.

Next up on Friday is a home clash with Glasgow who are setting a heady pace at the top of the Conference A table.

Gibbes (inset), who has lost two of his three games at the helm since replacing Les Kiss three weeks ago, said: “It doesn’t get any easier. It’s well known the run-in we have with three away games, so I think that’s a serious situation and we need to get some serious answers pretty quickly.

“We need to pick through the last three games, ascertain what works for us and work really hard on some of the deficiencies that clearly still exist and got exposed in the second half against Scarlets.” Ulster led 7-3 at the break thanks to a converted Stuart Mccloskey try before Scarlets, who were missing a raft of players on Six Nations duty, ran in four second half tries.

Gibbes said: “At half time we felt we knew what needed to be done and wanted to try and put Scarlets under pressure, but ended up conceding 31 points in the second half.

“They were clinical and put us under pressure and we didn’t react to that pressure well at all. We need to address what happened in that second half.”