It was always going to be difficult at Sandy Park. Exeter entered Sunday's game having lost just once in their last nine outings, a run that has seen them rise to third in the English Premiership.
Ulster did show some promising glimpses with ball in hand - for the third consecutive week Les Kiss’ men have dominated the attack stats - yet a wastefulness at crucial times has been costly against Leinster, Scarlets and now Exeter (by a 31-19 scoreline).
Indeed, Ulster’s 13 clean line breaks to Exeter’s 3 should have been enough to warrant victory at Sandy Park, but an inability to convert those opportunities left the team frustrated, says Iain Henderson.
“Throughout the game in terms of offloads, defenders beaten and line breaks, I think we did well, but that doesn’t win games. If you look at the stats I’d say we dominated in a number of areas, but it’s the same old story, we’re just not clinical enough, particularly at key moments.
“We’re making line busts. The likes of Stuart McCloskey and Charles Piutau are putting us in good positions, the forwards are too. We are making opportunities for ourselves but aren’t finishing enough of them.
“We’ve been doing the difficult parts, but the easy part of it may just be the last pass or cleaning a breakdown and that’s where we’ve let ourselves down. We’ve done all the right things to get to that point, it’s just ensuring that we as players have the ability and know-how to finish our opportunities off.”
Henderson also feels that there is work to be done to shore up the defence.
“I think our maul defence was great if you look at the amount of maul tries that Exeter score. We did well to nullify a good few of their threats.
“But there were technical errors in our defensive line and they capitalised on that very well. If you contrast our attack to Exeter’s, I think that they made only a few line breaks but they got a reward of five tries.”
The Ireland forward says that the squad had studied in depth the potential impact of double try-scorer Thomas Waldrom, who impressed at number 8.
“We looked at him a lot. We know he’s a good player, we know he carries hard. He did what he is good at and that’s what has been getting him picked for Exeter.”
Ulster will host Bordeaux at Kingspan Stadium on Saturday is their final Champions Cup pool match of the season. Their hopes of progression to the knock-out stages are all but over, however, Henderson insists that the players will continue to work hard in training to finish the campaign on a high, and then launch an assault on the Guinness PRO12.
“I think we have to go back and have a good, hard look at ourselves and reassess what we’re doing in training and reassess what we’re delivering as a group of players. We need to change our mindset to ensure we become a great team at taking opportunities,” concluded Henderson.
Tickets for Saturday's match v Bordeaux (1pm) are still on sale from ULSTERRUGBY.COM/BUYTICKETS.
Ulster did show some promising glimpses with ball in hand - for the third consecutive week Les Kiss’ men have dominated the attack stats - yet a wastefulness at crucial times has been costly against Leinster, Scarlets and now Exeter (by a 31-19 scoreline).
Indeed, Ulster’s 13 clean line breaks to Exeter’s 3 should have been enough to warrant victory at Sandy Park, but an inability to convert those opportunities left the team frustrated, says Iain Henderson.
“Throughout the game in terms of offloads, defenders beaten and line breaks, I think we did well, but that doesn’t win games. If you look at the stats I’d say we dominated in a number of areas, but it’s the same old story, we’re just not clinical enough, particularly at key moments.
“We’re making line busts. The likes of Stuart McCloskey and Charles Piutau are putting us in good positions, the forwards are too. We are making opportunities for ourselves but aren’t finishing enough of them.
“We’ve been doing the difficult parts, but the easy part of it may just be the last pass or cleaning a breakdown and that’s where we’ve let ourselves down. We’ve done all the right things to get to that point, it’s just ensuring that we as players have the ability and know-how to finish our opportunities off.”
Henderson also feels that there is work to be done to shore up the defence.
“I think our maul defence was great if you look at the amount of maul tries that Exeter score. We did well to nullify a good few of their threats.
“But there were technical errors in our defensive line and they capitalised on that very well. If you contrast our attack to Exeter’s, I think that they made only a few line breaks but they got a reward of five tries.”
The Ireland forward says that the squad had studied in depth the potential impact of double try-scorer Thomas Waldrom, who impressed at number 8.
“We looked at him a lot. We know he’s a good player, we know he carries hard. He did what he is good at and that’s what has been getting him picked for Exeter.”
Ulster will host Bordeaux at Kingspan Stadium on Saturday is their final Champions Cup pool match of the season. Their hopes of progression to the knock-out stages are all but over, however, Henderson insists that the players will continue to work hard in training to finish the campaign on a high, and then launch an assault on the Guinness PRO12.
“I think we have to go back and have a good, hard look at ourselves and reassess what we’re doing in training and reassess what we’re delivering as a group of players. We need to change our mindset to ensure we become a great team at taking opportunities,” concluded Henderson.
Tickets for Saturday's match v Bordeaux (1pm) are still on sale from ULSTERRUGBY.COM/BUYTICKETS.