DEFEAT to Emirates Lions last Saturday was not how Ulster wanted their South African sojourn to begin, but they have the opportunity to return with something to show when they take on Vodacom Bulls at Loftus Versfeld Stadium in Pretoria this Saturday (3pm Irish time, live on Premier Sports).

Just a losing bonus point was secured in Johannesburg as Corrie Barrett scored a fourth try but they will be going for much more this week against a Bulls side that opened their campaign with a 22-16 home win over Edinburgh at the weekend despite missing their Springbok contingent who were in action against Argentina.

The altitude and heat didn't help Ulster's cause as mistakes were punished, so the objective is to clean those up this weekend.

Another blow from the weekend was a knee injury sustained by Stuart McCloskey which renders him unavailable this week.

His loss will be keenly felt against a side that reached last year's URC final and have bags of quality in Canan Moodie, Jaco van der Walt, David Kriel and Cameron Hanekom.

Ulster have handed three players their first start including hooker, James McCormick and centre, while academy lock, Charlie Irvine makes his Ulster debut, starting in the second row alongside captain, Iain Henderson.

"The Bulls have more refinement to their shape, they have big forwards and fast backs," noted Ulster defence coach, Jonny Bell.

"The Bulls will bring a mixture of power and pace, the Lions although they have big forwards they tend to want to get the ball very fast to their backs and are very dangerous off transition. They are different but have some similarities.

"We have a huge task, the boys are excited for that challenge at Loftus to face up to that, face some big ball carriers, they are a big set-piece team so we have to be on our metal there. Their backs like to get one on ones and are dangerous. A great challenge.

"We want to be difficult to play against, we are setting that challenge as a team. Against the Lions we weren’t hard enough to play against but that’s the challenge."

The defeat against the Lions was naturally disappointing considering their campaign opened with a home victory against champions, Glasgow.

However it's still early days in the season and the fact they didn't come away completely empty-handed was something of a positive, but the challenge is to learn the lessons and improve this week. 

"We were bitterly disappointed," Bell admitted,.

"We have reviewed things and it was a game we wanted to win, a game we thought we could win but after the first half we gave ourselves an uphill battle and couldn’t really get going. We had a lot of turnovers, missed tackles and gave them that bit of oxygen they needed to get home.

"The boys fought tooth and nail to get back into it, we did well to get that bonus-point."