Solarflare card loses carrier seconds after reboot

I have a Solarflare SFC9250 card installed on my box Ubuntu 20.04.5 LTS

$ lspci | grep -i solarflare
4a:00.0 Ethernet controller: Solarflare Communications XtremeScale SFC9250 10/25/40/50/100G Ethernet Controller (rev 01)
4a:00.1 Ethernet controller: Solarflare Communications XtremeScale SFC9250 10/25/40/50/100G Ethernet Controller (rev 01)

I have installed the DKMS package from the RPM with alien as instructed here. When it was installed, the drivers loaded correctly and the interface was operational.

Now, I run Kubuntu, which is basically Ubuntu desktop with KDE and I have enabled networkd as the network manager. The configuration file looks like

# cat /etc/netplan/00-install-config.yaml 
network:
  version: 2
  renderer: networkd
  ethernets:
    enp69s0:
      dhcp4: true
      match:
        macaddress: 18:c0:4d:8b:49:a3
    enp68s0:
      addresses:
        - 10.0.1.1/24
      match:
        macaddress: 18:c0:4d:8b:49:a4
    enp74s0f0:
      addresses:
        - 10.0.1.2/24
      dhcp4: no
      match:
        macaddress: 00:0f:53:9a:44:b0
    enp74s0f1:
      addresses:
        - 10.0.1.3/24
      dhcp4: no
      match:
        macaddress: 00:0f:53:9a:44:b1

The problem is, right after reboot, the interface is still up but it goes down a few seconds after

$ dmesg | grep enp74
[    2.644146] sfc 0000:4a:00.0 enp74s0f0: renamed from eth0
[    3.104102] sfc 0000:4a:00.1 enp74s0f1: renamed from eth2
[    6.426325] sfc 0000:4a:00.0 enp74s0f0: resource driverlink client registered
[    6.441052] sfc 0000:4a:00.1 enp74s0f1: resource driverlink client registered
[    8.199076] sfc 0000:4a:00.1 enp74s0f1: link up at 10000Mbps full-duplex (MTU 1500)
[    8.199081] sfc 0000:4a:00.1 enp74s0f1: link up at 10000Mbps full-duplex (MTU 1500)
[    8.199392] sfc 0000:4a:00.1 enp74s0f1: link down
[    8.251058] sfc 0000:4a:00.0 enp74s0f0: link up at 10000Mbps full-duplex (MTU 1500)
[    8.251063] sfc 0000:4a:00.0 enp74s0f0: link up at 10000Mbps full-duplex (MTU 1500)
[    8.251367] sfc 0000:4a:00.0 enp74s0f0: link down
[    8.943370] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): enp74s0f1: link becomes ready
[    9.188098] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): enp74s0f0: link becomes ready

If I disconnect the cable on the card, it becomes operational again (link goes up on the switch). The same does not happen if I disconnect the cable from the switch. At that point I see these messages on dmesg:

[ 1079.891187] sfc 0000:4a:00.0 enp74s0f0: No configured speeds were supported with the new module. Resetting speed to default (caps=0x80)
[ 1080.839804] sfc 0000:4a:00.0 enp74s0f0: link up at 10000Mbps full-duplex (MTU 1500)
[ 1083.312454] sfc 0000:4a:00.1 enp74s0f1: No configured speeds were supported with the new module. Resetting speed to default (caps=0x80)
[ 1084.100407] net_ratelimit: 1 callbacks suppressed
[ 1084.100413] sfc 0000:4a:00.1 enp74s0f1: link up at 10000Mbps full-duplex (MTU 1500)

UPDATE: if I issue onload_tool reload the links come up again. Could this be a driver/firmware issue?

I have a feeling that I am missing something very basic here. Any idea?