Head Coach, Dan McFarland, told the post match press conference that despite an encouraging first half that saw Ulster lead at the break, the second half performance was disappointing, as a strong Bath side took the momentum of the fixture.
Match analysis
“I think the amount of errors that we made and a combination of giving away scrum penalties although I felt we had some physical intensity, urgency in the game, at this level you need to be accurate and I felt throughout the game bar the second quarter, we created opportunities but didn’t make them pay.
You have to say fair play to Bath, they took their chances and when they got the squeeze on us they got points.”
Team fight
"I don’t think the heads went down, we made errors that gave them possession and field position so they were on a roll and on top form. I don’t think we stopped fighting.
It was clear that the way we play was going to create opportunities and cause Bath trouble. You have to execute those, we were up and down in that first half, we had a couple of good passages that we got points out of but we needed to put those together in the second half and we didn’t do that."
Racing 92 challenge
"They are the best in the top league, best attack, best defence, a big French club coming to Kingspan Stadium so we are looking forward to the challenge."
Overcoming losses
"Last year we got out of it, of course it doesn’t get easier when you have Racing 92 at home, the quality of the opposition you play is a massive contextual element.
This week was always going to be a difficult away game to win, with the form they are in. Last week we should have won (against Edinburgh) and we hold our hands up to that, this week we were extremely competitive until the momentum went away from us because we didn’t make our opportunities count.
Racing at home on a Saturday night, then a couple of Interpros with Connacht coming to town, they are brilliant opportunities for us. These are great fixtures and everybody wants to be involved in that."
Club captain, Iain Henderson, echoed the disappointment of not building on a strong second half but says that the squad will rally behind each other and look to bounce back swiftly against Racing 92 this Saturday at Kingspan Stadium.
Bath reflections
"We asked ourselves to make an impact at the start of the game, and I felt we got a lot right in that first half, we got ourselves into the game the way we wanted to, our set piece went well and we spoke at half time to keep our foot on the throat mentality and drive that home but our discipline, turnover rate let us down in that half and I think that got the game away from us.
We have guys in there who are hurting hard and taking it on the chin, we have to come back and bounce back next week."
Working on scrum battles
"You can work on it, you can be smart about how you work on it, the front row will do a lot of reviews around it off pitch and getting stuff right around before the physicality starts, our set ups are right and our bind phase before the contact starts, I have no doubt that will be a huge focus going in to next week."
Dealing with pressure
"As a team I feel we do well when we do well when the pressure is on and we have that chip on our shoulder mentality. We understand when we out there playing, we are trying for each other and when your back is up against the wall you are doing it for each other.
We have a strong team mentality, so going into next week we want to take what we did well in the first half and bring that out, what we slipped up on we push aside and not let those mistakes happen.
Certain players feel that outside noise more than others and its about ensuring we don’t let that happen in training, that we get around each other, reassure each other and do it for the right reasons."