Declan Bogue

PITY THOSE CORRESPONDENTS around the Ulster Rugby beat that don’t share the same devotion to the granular detail of coaching that Dan McFarland has.

Almost any question is not taken at face value. No clichés are offered. Instead, it’s an invitation to tease out ideas and outcomes.

Asked about the three different Ulster tries that were scored off tap penalties, and you soon realise that there wasn’t a hint of opportunism about them at all.

After a poor result against Bath, some coaches would be prepared to wallow in a good result thereafter. However, McFarland puts the credit back to his players.

“We were chatting at the start of the week about those tap penalty moves close to the line,” he begins.

“We got a lot of guys who think a lot about stuff like that. It was Hendy (Iain Henderson) that came up and said, ‘Why don’t we do a maul off a tap penalty?’

“So we said, ‘Yeah, let’s go for it.’”

When you have a group of players who are not only engaged by the work and adding layers of complexity to what a team can do, it is coaching Nirvana.

Ulster might not win anything this season, but it is clear that they are seeking to become a side that can generate tries from unlikely situations.

“It was either Tuesday or Thursday, we apportion a section of time at the end of training to what we would call ‘labs’, or ‘laboratories’ where we test it. You take the idea into the laboratory, we all stand round, the forwards are all there. One of the scrum halves had to suffer and we talk through the detail,” McFarland explains.

“I am really into that stuff. I love all the detail around that. We talk about ‘what ifs’? We check with the referees about what we are allowed to do. And then we go away and decide if we are going to put it into practice.

“I always think should we do one of them or both of them. To be fair, Hendy said, ‘Nah, let’s go for both of them.’ They’ve worked, so fair play.”

Iain Henderson. Tom Maher / INPHO Tom Maher / INPHO / INPHO

That was the fancy stuff.

It was also clear that they have spent a week of hard talking among the pack, too, after getting pushed from pillar to post by Bath the previous week.

“Bath are a very good scrum. But we chatted strong on Tuesday in the group, as a forward group and Steven Kitshoff made a very big impression in that meeting,” explains McFarland.

“We went down and trained it. I was really pleased that we took a couple of penalties off them. Which was great to get Scotty and Eric on the pitch at the end. Steven and Tom were playing excellently, but it was great to get them in and I think they got three scrums in the time they were on the pitch, which was terrific.”

This Friday, Ulster have another home game, this time against Connacht where they will be seeking to reverse the 22-20 loss in the Sportsground earlier this season.

It was a curiosity here that they could not sell out the stadium, though the public transport strike and the weekend of Christmas work functions might have played its part in that too.

Either way, there was a layer of poignancy too in that Ulster Rugby are bidding farewell to the late Syd Millar CBE, with a minute’s applause ringing out here before the game.

“We didn’t mention it in the week,” explained McFarland when asked if his players were motivated by the loss of such a towering figure of Ulster rugby.

“I know for a fact that the players are very aware of the history of the province and the impact that guys like Syd had on where we are now.

“We are only just passing through. Every one of us is just passing through. I want to make a mark. Hopefully when I am gone I am remembered as somebody who gave his all for the province and did absolutely everything he could.

“Why do you want to feel that? Because of people like Syd Millar, the stalwarts of the province who have come before and left their legacy.”