FROM HERE ON in Ulster are in bonus territory.
After a difficult season which saw the Dan McFarland era come to a premature end, the province have rallied impressively under new head coach Richie Murphy to squeeze into the URC play-offs.
Ulster gave Munster a real scare in their final regular-season game on Saturday but a 29-24 loss left them sixth in the table, setting up a challenging quarter-final date with Leinster.
Murphy’s charges will be the underdogs at Aviva Stadium on Saturday but they can make the trip with confidence after a string of impressive performances. Ulster ground out a hard-fought win against Leinster in Belfast last month and followed that up with a strong showing in Limerick, leading Munster for most of the game before falling away in the final quarter.
Produce a similarly spirited display against Leinster this weekend, and Ulster could make life difficult for their hosts – who are under pressure to avoid a third straight season without a trophy.
As far as Murphy sees it, his team have nothing to lose when they head to Dublin.
“[It's] A free shot. It’s hard to win qualifying games when you go away from home,” Murphy said.
“Obviously we’re not going that far, we’re going to the Aviva. We’ll go into it with confidence but we’re going to play a really good side that are hurting so we need to put them under pressure and that will be part of the plan, what can we do to apply as much pressure as possible to Leinster because realistically, I don’t think anyone will give us a shot down there.”
Murphy played down his team’s chances but you sense his players might be feeling quietly confident of causing an upset. Even with the likes of Iain Henderson, James Hume and Stuart McCloskey all missing, Ulster looked dangerous and determined at Thomond – with young players Cormac Izuchukwu (24 years old), David McCann (23) and Jude Postlethwaite (22) impressing.
The province have been building some nice momentum since Murphy’s arrival – winning four of their last five in the URC – and it was put to the Ulster boss that Munster went all the way in the tournament last year on the back of a similar late-season surge.
“When we run out of games, we run out of games. Win or lose, that’s the way it will be. If we start thinking about winning the whole thing we’re distracted and we’re taking away from what we need to do. What we need to do now is prepare to play Leinster and it’s going to be a very tough task.
I’m so proud of the lads. I think they’ve come a massive way in the last few weeks.
“They’re really playing for each other and that team-manship side of things is really coming on.
“But we’re very early in our journey as a team. There’s loads of things when we do get into the summer that we’ll want to work on and try and get better at.
“But we’re definitely moving in the right direction and from the coaches’ point of view, they haven’t been mentioned that much but I think they’ve done an incredible job over the last couple of weeks.
“Roddy’s [Grant] working extremely hard in the forward pack, John Fogarty is still coming in one day a week to give us a hand but both Jonny Bell and Dan Soper have done an incredible job over the last couple of weeks.
“I suppose we’re starting to become a tight team and that’s what we want to be.”
