It was Kim Pan-gon’s side who shaded a cagey opening, with Giorgi Arabidze cutting in from the right in the 14th minute to line-up a left-foot strike towards goal from 25 yards, but the Georgian’s low shot was pushed away by Daiya Maekawa as he dived to his right.

The home side carried most of the threat in the opening half hour, with Yago Cariello seeing his goal-bound attempt deflected wide after holding off the Kobe defence and from the resulting corner Arabidze tried his luck again from distance, but was off target.

Kobe started to gain a foothold in the game and, while Yosuke Ideguchi shot high over the bar in the 31st minute, Jo Hyeon-woo was called into action a minute later to deny Yuya Osako, the former Japan striker steering a header from Jean Patric’s cross towards goal.

By the third minute of the second half, however, Kobe had taken the lead through Miyashiro when he punished Ulsan’s poor defending.

Yun Il-lok’s attempt to clear 25 yards from goal was blocked by Miyashiro and the Kobe midfielder drove towards goal, holding off Yun’s efforts to atone for his mistake before sliding his shot through Lim Jeong-eun’s legs to beat Jo to his left.

Seconds later Kobe almost claimed a second as the Ulsan midfield gave the ball away cheaply again, but this time Jo was equal to the task as he dropped to his left to keep out a Yoshinori Muto shot.

By the 73rd minute, Kobe had all but sealed the points with Muto and Miyashiro combining for the Japanese side’s second.

Muto capitalised on more ponderous play by the Ulsan midfield to steal possession deep in the Korean club’s half and, after dribbling through the defence to reach the bye-line on the left side of goal, the former Newcastle United man found Miyashiro and he headed in.

Substitute Joo Min-kyu was denied the opportunity to halve the deficit in the 77th minute by Maekawa while four minutes later Daiju Sasaki could have added a third for Kobe but Jo made a fine save to keep out his effort from outside the area.