ULSTER DIRECTOR OF Rugby Les Kiss remained upbeat despite watching his side suffer their second defeat in a week last night.
The northern province have endured a stuttering start to the season and now find themselves in eight position in the Guinness Pro12 after being edged out 8-3 by Leinster at the RDS on Friday.
The visitors’ watertight defence ensured they stayed in the contest but a series of unforced errors meant their attacking outlets were starved of possession in opposition territory.
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Paddy Jackson brought Ulster level after Johnny Sexton’s early penalty but Sean Cronin’s try just before half-time ultimately separated the provinces in a game dominated by defences.
Speaking afterwards, Kiss was positive in his assessment although he did insist his side needed to eradicate the mistakes.
“When you’re playing the big teams, the margins get fine, very fine,” he said. “I can’t fault the effort the guys put in.
“I said it last week, we were good but we need to be very good against the better teams and there’s a lot of good things to come out of it.”
After seeing plenty of possession in the Leinster 22 during the first-half, Ulster were unable to force the issue when they were left to chase the came after the break.
Ulster's Nick Williams and Kyle McCall at the final whistle. Dan Sheridan / INPHO
Dan Sheridan / INPHO / INPHO
An Andrew Trimble break apart, there was little in the way of attacking flair from the guests and Kiss admits his side need to work on that aspect of their game.
“We want to be a team with the ball in hand and challenge ourself to be a team who can change the direction of the game if we need to.
“The second-half shows you what we’re all about. The first-half, if we’d managed things a little bit better and backed our game we would have got more out of it.
“I think the last few minutes of the first-half, we really applied pressure with the game that we can. I think if Iain Henderson holds that line a bit longer and there’s a hole there to get through and he knocks the ball on. Those are the things we must get better at.”
Kiss insisted he delivered a positive message to his players in the dressing room after and opted to look at the positives of coming away from the RDS with a losing bonus point.
“We made more tackles than them and finished the half very strongly and fair play they held strongly too,” he continued. “There was an eight minute period at the back end where everyone was doing their best to get the result but fair play to Leinster they held strong and got it.
“There’s a lot of good things, I’m not going to be too downbeat, of course losing is not an option going forward and it gets tougher and tougher but it’s important for us to take the positives from that game.”
'The second-half shows what we're all about' - Kiss takes positives from RDS defeat
ULSTER DIRECTOR OF Rugby Les Kiss remained upbeat despite watching his side suffer their second defeat in a week last night.
The northern province have endured a stuttering start to the season and now find themselves in eight position in the Guinness Pro12 after being edged out 8-3 by Leinster at the RDS on Friday.
The visitors’ watertight defence ensured they stayed in the contest but a series of unforced errors meant their attacking outlets were starved of possession in opposition territory.
Paddy Jackson brought Ulster level after Johnny Sexton’s early penalty but Sean Cronin’s try just before half-time ultimately separated the provinces in a game dominated by defences.
Speaking afterwards, Kiss was positive in his assessment although he did insist his side needed to eradicate the mistakes.
“When you’re playing the big teams, the margins get fine, very fine,” he said. “I can’t fault the effort the guys put in.
After seeing plenty of possession in the Leinster 22 during the first-half, Ulster were unable to force the issue when they were left to chase the came after the break.
An Andrew Trimble break apart, there was little in the way of attacking flair from the guests and Kiss admits his side need to work on that aspect of their game.
“We want to be a team with the ball in hand and challenge ourself to be a team who can change the direction of the game if we need to.
“The second-half shows you what we’re all about. The first-half, if we’d managed things a little bit better and backed our game we would have got more out of it.
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