Ulster's Assistant Coach, Dan Soper, told the post-game press conference that while a fourth win of the campaign was pleasing, that there is a lot of room for improvement in the side, which is something he and his fellow coaching staff will be keen to emphasise in the coming days.
Results so far
“If you had said before the season started we would have four wins from five games, I think that would be a pretty good outcome. We look more at the quality of what we are doing as well as the results, that’s how we are measured but it’s our job as coaches to dig deeper and look at what is going well in our performance and what we need to work on. We have lots that we need to get better at."
On going for the tap and go at the end of the match
“I haven’t had a chance to talk to the key decision makers, when they have moments like that they have a process they go through to decide why they go for a tap than the scrum. The scrum and maul were going well but we had our thoughts in the box about what to do but the guys are out there, they are in it and they have a feel for those things. Once they go for it they are all in and tonight they just didn’t work for us. We will learn from it and look back on it."
Squad depth
"I think we have seen a huge number of players play, the obvious one that jumps out is Scott Wilson, playing at Queens University and being in the Ulster academy but guys like Scott, Lorcan McLoughlin and Reuben Crothers have been getting their opportunity. Five games in and we have a lot of guys that we know we can rely on at that level, that’s good for competition.
It was always in the plan, some players suit some games too. I think off the back of having a long pre-season, it was important to get the bulk of the squad involved in the early part of the season. Scott for example is someone that we probably didn’t expect to get in and to the level he has, so that’s excellent to us. It brings more competition into the group.”
Game management
“There are areas of our game we want to get better at, we are making some errors, on a night like tonight you can account for some of those. We are trying to push things on, because we make those errors we aren’t getting the dominance of terrorist we are used to. Which is maybe why you aren’t seeing us camped in the opposition 22 and mauling teams to death. We have to cut those errors out in the middle of the park."
Glasgow Warriors
"It will be a hell of a challenge, they are an excellent team. They play more rugby from deep than any other team, they really challenge you playing out of their own half and have so many players that beat people one-on-one and make line-breaks. They have a pretty unique Scottish way of defending so it will be a big challenge. A big game and really looking forward to it."
After a solid performance in the pouring rain, back-row player, Dave Ewers, was awarded the Player of the Match award for his shift. The former Exeter Chiefs player is still adjusting to hus new life as an Ulster player and is making an impact already at this early stage of the campaign. Ewers spoke to the local press about the win and hius pride in watching Ulster's young players take their opportunities.
On the weather conditions
“To be fair Exeter had moments too with bad weather! It was tough to play in, probably quite frustrating to watch with the amount of mistakes but in the second half we did pretty well. If they had scored straight after half time, it would have been a difficult match to get back into but that first score after half-time was important for us.”
It was difficult, we wanted to string some phases together and at times it was difficult with mistakes. The game became quite set-piece orientated. At times we were good and made the most of them."
On another tight win
“It’s disappointing to leave it late but it’s really encouraging that we are willing to fight for each other and put that effort in, it would have been nice to get that bonus point try in the last few minutes but it wasn’t to be.”
On younger players
“They have been brilliant, I take my hat off to them. They have come in, asked questions, been high up on their detail and I have been taken aback by how professional they have been.
They haven’t been afraid to ask questions and know what is expected of them. You can see that in how they are playing, they know where to be and they are getting their detail right in the week and that allows them to perform to the best that they can at the weekend."
Start to the season
“I think we can be relatively happy with how we have gone, we are picking up the wins and tonight the weather didn’t allow us to play the way we wanted to. There are elements where we want to improve but we are winning and learning which is a positive."