Richie Murphy gave his thoughts on a disappointing night for the province after a promising first half...
Match reaction
It's a tough one. Obviously we put some really good stuff together in the first half and before half-time Cardiff got into the game and started to put us under some pressure. We were probably lucky to come out of that period without conceding anything and we talked at half-time about how we approached that next 10 minutes after the restart.
Unfortunately we didn't look after the ball well enough, we kept giving away penalties, Cardiff had a free shot at us and eventually our defence broke. I think credit to Cardiff who did really well tonight but we are very disappointed going home with a loss.
On the yellow card in second half...
Anytime you lose a man you are going to be under pressure. They lost a man in the first half and we scored, the same thing happened to us but even after that we had enough opportunities to finish off the game. We had a couple of critical decisions halfway through that second half that swings the game in Cardiff's favour. Once the home crowd got in behind them it was always going to be tough.
First half performance
We played some really good stuff, I thought we looked powerful, our play was good. Once or twice we didn't look after the ball and got too excited once we got into their 22, there was probably another score in it for us if we showed more patience. But that's the way it goes, we finished the block with three wins from six, which is not where we wanted it to be but we have to move onto the next one.
Ulster back-rower, Nick Timoney, spoke afterwards about the result and his faith in the team to re-group after the defeat.
On Cardiff disappointment...
We are really disappointed, we started quite strongly, finished well in the first half but we couldn’t keep that up in the second half. We let things get away from us and it felt like they felt the momentum on their side and they made us pay.
Message in dressing room after full-time...
We have to maintain some of the advantages that we felt we had in the first half. We had more possession, more field position, that kind of thing. Our attacking shape was maybe a bit cleaner and some of our set piece was better.
We drifted a bit in some of those areas and they got on top in field position and possession, from there we put ourselves under pressure with discipline. The formula is clearly there with how we played in the first half, but we couldn’t execute it for 80 minutes unfortunately.
Faith in the team to bounce back from this setback?
Yeah, we have had a couple of good results in the last while, obviously a couple of bad results too but throughout all that there have been lots of little things that we have been trying to implement and improve on week to week. It can be hard when you are in the thick of it to make those major adjustments and I certainly know the coaches and players will find it beneficial to have a bit of time to iron some of those things out when we reflect on the first block of games.
I have full confidence we will come back to a place that still has a great buzz about it and a team that strives to get better. The first half – we probably played some of our best rugby this year so we are seeing bits of that but obviously not the complete thing just yet.