Bonus-point victory for Ulster over Zebre Parma at Kingspan Stadium

Ulster started the weekend in second but were surpassed briefly by the Stormers after they beat the Scarlets earlier in the day with a bonus point before Dan McFarland’s side scored six tries against the Italians.

Ulster scored two tries in the opening 10 minutes, but the floodgates never opened and for chucks of the game it was laboured from the home side.

Ulster showed no signs of rust after their month’s break scoring the opening try after five minutes.

From a penalty they went to the corner, Zebre illegally stopped the maul, again the home side went for touch.

The pack drove and hooker Tom Stewart peeled off to ground the ball in the corner but scrum half Nathan Doak was unable to convert.

Ulster craved open the Italians again four minutes later. Prop Marty Moore made a strong carry before releasing centre James Hume, he offloaded to Doak with the scrum half putting Matty Rea clear to go under the posts making the conversion a formality.

Zebre registered their first points on 13 minutes with a penalty from out half Geronimo Prisciantelli.

Ulster lock Sam Carter was yellow carded on 29 minutes when he barged in Prisciantelli as the out half tried to take a quick tap penalty.

The visitors made their numerical advantage immediately count. They kicked the resulting penalty to touch, the ball was moved quickly across the pitch, Lorenzo Pani evaded Jacob Stockdale’s tackle and dummy Stewart Moore to stroll over but Prisciantelli couldn’t convert.

Ulster’s third try came after prop Callum Reid touched down on 35 minutes.

Ulster forced a penalty close to the Zebre line, they opted for a tap and go, after a few probes Reid barged over with Doak adding the extras.

Stewart Moore sealed the bonus point try with the clock in the red at the end of the first half. It followed a sustained period of ball retention before it was moved wide and the full back went over. Doak added the conversion to give Ulster a 26-8 lead at the break.

Doak was sin binned two minutes after the restart for a dangerous tackle on Zebre winger Simone Gesi.

Stewart made it four tries in his last three starts as he bagged Ulster’s fifth try on 53 mins.

It came from the tried and tested penalty to the corner and the hooker was propelled over from the driving maul for an unconverted try.

Ulster’s sixth try on 66 minutes was a carbon copy of the fifth - they kicked a penalty to touch, Iain Henderson took the line out to set up the driving maul, and replacement hooker John Andrew dotted down at the back, with Doak missing the conversion.

Andrew was denied another try on 73 minutes. The hooker touched down from another lineout maul but the score was chalked off as the hooker was adjudged to have changed his bind.

Zebre got a late consolation converted try from replacement Erich Cronje.