ULSTER HEAD COACH Richie Murphy pointed to a lack of experience as a defining factor behind his side’s heavy defeat to Leicester on Saturday evening.
Missing experience figures such as Rob Herring, Stuart McCloskey, James Hume and Jacob Stockdale, Ulster collapsed from leading 10-0 early doors to a final scoreline of 38-10. A dismal, error strewn second 40 saw the province hand a number of guilt-edged scores to Michael Cheika’s Tigers as they chased the game in vain.
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“The pressure comes on, the guys feel they need to be because they’re behind, but the more they play the more trouble they play into,” said Murphy. “It’s probably a little bit of experience in that regard, when to take the right opportunity to play. We want to play, but you can’t play off the back of slow ball with a full line in front of you.
“[We] Turn over the ball and one or two scores led from that. It is what it is, we’ve always known this was a difficult group we were in, the situation that we’re in, these players will learn from that. You’ve just got to move on.
“At 10-0 up I thought we were very much in the game, causing Leicester a bit of trouble off the lineout and playing off the back. We had a couple opportunities early on and didn’t capitalise on that. The game got away from us in and around the second half. We didn’t deal with the high ball well enough and that created broken field and Leicester getting on top. A difficult day for our back line, really.”
Remarkably, in a nod to the flawed nature of the current Champions Cup format, Ulster are not out of the competition despite losing all of their three matches so far. They are currently five match points behind the Sharks, trailing the South African side by 56 on points difference.
Given the Sharks have to travel to a rampant Bordeaux side and a struggling Exeter visit Belfast next week, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that heavy Ulster and Bordeaux victories see the province sneak into the last-16. As it happens, a win of any sort over the English side will put Ulster into the Challenge Cup.
“The only thing we want to do is beat Exeter, said Murphy. “We want to win a game in this competition.
“We’re causing really good teams problems with a very young team. We’ve just got to try and get ready, try and beat Exeter.”
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'You can’t play off the back of slow ball with a full line in front of you'
ULSTER HEAD COACH Richie Murphy pointed to a lack of experience as a defining factor behind his side’s heavy defeat to Leicester on Saturday evening.
Missing experience figures such as Rob Herring, Stuart McCloskey, James Hume and Jacob Stockdale, Ulster collapsed from leading 10-0 early doors to a final scoreline of 38-10. A dismal, error strewn second 40 saw the province hand a number of guilt-edged scores to Michael Cheika’s Tigers as they chased the game in vain.
“The pressure comes on, the guys feel they need to be because they’re behind, but the more they play the more trouble they play into,” said Murphy. “It’s probably a little bit of experience in that regard, when to take the right opportunity to play. We want to play, but you can’t play off the back of slow ball with a full line in front of you.
“[We] Turn over the ball and one or two scores led from that. It is what it is, we’ve always known this was a difficult group we were in, the situation that we’re in, these players will learn from that. You’ve just got to move on.
“At 10-0 up I thought we were very much in the game, causing Leicester a bit of trouble off the lineout and playing off the back. We had a couple opportunities early on and didn’t capitalise on that. The game got away from us in and around the second half. We didn’t deal with the high ball well enough and that created broken field and Leicester getting on top. A difficult day for our back line, really.”
Remarkably, in a nod to the flawed nature of the current Champions Cup format, Ulster are not out of the competition despite losing all of their three matches so far. They are currently five match points behind the Sharks, trailing the South African side by 56 on points difference.
Given the Sharks have to travel to a rampant Bordeaux side and a struggling Exeter visit Belfast next week, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that heavy Ulster and Bordeaux victories see the province sneak into the last-16. As it happens, a win of any sort over the English side will put Ulster into the Challenge Cup.
“The only thing we want to do is beat Exeter, said Murphy. “We want to win a game in this competition.
“We’re causing really good teams problems with a very young team. We’ve just got to try and get ready, try and beat Exeter.”
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