Declan Bogue

AFTER A GAME, Ulster head coach Dan McFarland likes a can of lager and will happily do his media rounds and speak to whoever.

He was barely in the form for it on 16 April 2022 in Kingspan Stadium though. His side had just been beaten in the Champions Cup Round of 16 by Toulouse, a 30-23 win giving the visitors a one-point win on aggregate.

And the man who made the decisive play was Antoine Dupont. With five minutes to go he exploited the gap in the Ulster defence and speared through for the try.

Dupont will be back in town this Saturday night for Round 3 of the pool stages, provoking memories from McFarland.

“I remember when he was here the last time, he ruined our night basically on his own with a brilliant display of kicking and a couple of breaks that led to tries,” he says.

“I leave the stadium pretty late obviously, and going out he was still signing autographs for young Ulster supporters.

“He could have packed his bag and gone straight back to the team hotel. I thought, ‘Man, that’s awesome.’

“I’ve got a lot of respect for him, he’s a great ambassador for the sport. In terms of his play, he’s a very instinctive player that has a brilliant skillset. He’s a brilliant athlete which gets him out of trouble a lot.”

Dupont’s strength was showcased in that famous try-saving tackle against Mack Hansen last year when he levered his body at a perfect level to hold up Hansen just feet from the line. McFarland also notes he uses the same strength to offload to the juggernaut runners coming off his shoulder, his sharp kicking game and well, a lot more besides.

“In rugby terms,” he says by way of conclusion, “that’s priceless.”

Weeks like this bring out the best around Ravenhill. The staff have a lightness to them. The early announcement that there is a sell-out crowd for a Saturday night game has some dreaming, and looking up flights to London for the final in any event.

And then there’s the glamour of the weekend’s opponents.

“There’s a strong argument that Toulouse are unique. I don’t say that lightly,” says McFarland.

“In rugby there are so many generic ways of playing or standardised ways of playing both in defence and attack.

“Whenever you watch Toulouse, year in year out, they break the mould around that.

“The way they attack, the way they build their team around that attack is very different to most other teams and that makes it exciting to watch.

Toulouse star Antoine Dupont. James Crombie / INPHO James Crombie / INPHO / INPHO

“We’ve certainly highlighted some areas of Toulouse’s game where we’ll need to be on the money but that’s easier said than done. They’ll cause us problems at some point on Saturday.”

They sure will. They’d cause anyone bother. They went to Harlequins who are second in England’s Premiership and put 47 points on them. Dangerous.

But confidence is oozing around these parts. It all feels a hell of a lot different to 12 months ago. Back then, there was speculation that McFarland would be losing his job. He spoke at the time about the warm reception he received from some travelling fans as they waited at the baggage carousel — another airport, another away loss — and the support they extended to him.

He casts his mind back to that brutal period last Christmas when their season went up in smoke and does a little compare and contrast.

At the time, October had been good to them with wins over Ospreys, Lions and Munster, followed by a thumping win over Zebre in late November.

Then came an honourable defeat to Leinster in the RDS, a 39-0 wipeout away to Sale, and a loss to La Rochelle. A narrow win over Connacht provided little respite before further defeats by Munster, Benetton and La Rochelle ended their aspirations.

Suddenly, things have come together. Their winning streak might only be three games, but the opposition provides ample context.

A commanding win over Racing 92 and squeaking past Connacht gave us a flavour of how they were coming up with tap penalties and yielding tries through what they term their ‘laboratories’ in training.

Then came the New Year’s Day win over Leinster. What’s rare is wonderful, but it was no fluke. They may have been under pressure but the composure and concentration was immense.

Yet for all the mood-swings in form, McFarland’s demeanour barely changes. It’s a zen state he finds himself in.

So as process-orientated as modern rugby is, how much of the secret sauce is down to some good old-fashioned confidence?

“I think confidence is extremely important and confidence comes from a number of things. Process being one of them; what you have done, what you are training, what you are trying to achieve,” he says.

“That’s sort of a bedrock of what you are doing. You can’t rely on winning every weekend and everybody feeling good about themselves.

“You have got to believe in what you are doing each week and what you are practising. So it’s a combination of the two.”

He considers where on the scale the levels are at since he first came here in April 2018, and he goes into the abstract.

“You come in on a Monday and you have just beaten Leinster. And you have beaten Connacht the week before. Beat Racing the week before that and you are feeling pretty good about yourself. And that will be the same across multiple clubs,” he says.

“The previous three weeks when we had lost to Bath away, and we were coming in, yeah… we know what we are trying to do, we are nearly there, but ugh… There’s a little bit of angst in there. You are not as confident.

“I think even during that period, we were pretty confident that we were not far away. The last year when it was really difficult over Christmas, I think one of the things we kept our minds on was the quality and difficulty of the fixtures we were playing at that time.

“That sort of helped us. Yes, we knew we weren’t playing great at that time, but there was context to it. We weren’t as confident back then, but there’s a bounce in the step now that we are winning.”

If they can keep Dupont quiet and grab the win on Saturday night, he’ll barely feel the ground beneath him.