Following the match, Dan McFarland spoke to the local media about how the performance showed aspects of the work the squad had been working on in training and how the players devised the play around the 5 metre tap and go penalties, which led to three Ulster tries on the night.
On Ulster's performance...
“It was our best for a while, speaking to a number of senior players in the week, they had a feeling that that we were bubbling away in training and the opportunities that we created with the ball against Bath and Edinburgh, left us feeling that we left a lot out on the field but also confident that the foundations of what we are trying to put together are there.
It was just some of the detail around making it work weren’t, but we made a strategic decision to move the ball around a bit more, the shape we play in and its taking us a period of time, but I thought in that first 40 minutes we looked much more like what we are trying to achieve.”
Adapting to the changes...
“The players have bought in, they want to play, they understand what we are trying to do but weren’t quite getting it right. It’s complex, we are changing it and we are playing with more risk than in previous years. It’s cost us on occasion but I feel the foundations are there, however we are not the complete article because we need to consistently play at that high level going forward.”
Connacht on Friday...
"We have a few days before Connacht come to town, they physically caused us problems the last time they were here, the way they approach the breakdown in the last game they caused us trouble and we got on the wrong side of the referee in that game. It’s going to be a big challenge, a very different challenge to Racing and we will re-focus to that."
On Ulster's tap and go tactics...
"We chatted at the start of the week about tap penalty moves close to the line, we have guys who think about stuff like that and it was Hendy who came up with that where we do a maul off a tap penalty.
On Tuesday or Thursday we spent some time after training in labs, where we test the idea, all forwards got there and we spoke through the detail.
I love the detail, we talk about the what ifs and we check with the referees whether we can do stuff like that. We go away after we do it and whether we put it into practise. Hendy said let’s go for both and fair play!"
On faith in the system...
"We wanted to expand our attack, slightly change our system and the way we play. The strategy change was that we were going to do that from more areas of the field, to give us the best opportunities for our attack.
During this season, we didn’t execute well enough or often enough for it to be as impactful as we wanted it to be. But we are working on it. In Edinburgh and Bath we created multiple opportunities to stress defences but weren’t accurate enough or getting little bits of details wrong, when you turnover and against good teams they make you pay.
We are trying to create an attack that is a step forward from what we have had before. We are all working hard on that. We will review this game, look back and try to push it on next week."
Player of the Match, Stuart McCloskey, told the press conference about how the squad stuck together during training and that their efforts paid off with the performance on Saturday.
On the home win and what was different this week...
A European game at home, backs against the wall, it’s hard to know.
We put things in place especially last week against Bath that we thought we created opportunities but had too many handling errors and we obviously struggled a bit at set piece, but we sorted most of that out tonight.
Tonight, I felt relief particularly with 20 minutes to go when they put a lot of pressure on us, we’ve let games slip away we’ve been like that before but we showed a real bit of grit and determination to fight on and get the win, get the bonus point.
I thought there were barely any handling errors, we put them under a lot of pressure and that paid dividends."
How big of a win it was...
"I don’t think last week (Bath) was as bad as people made out and we were right in the game until probably 57 minutes or something.
There were a couple of chances if we’d caught the ball we’d have probably been away ourselves but we knocked the ball on, gave away a scrum penalty five metres from our line and then you’re under pressure, so I think we right in the game for 57 odd minutes and away from home which was good. We took confidence from that.
In terms of backing up, we’ll try to and keep on trying to get better and I know that’s such a cliché but tonight you finally saw some of the stuff we’ve wanted to do for the last 9/ 10 weeks of the season."
On his try...
"It was pretty off the cuff. Cooney gave me a good ball, not sure who was ahead of me it could have been Le Garrec and I think I’ve got about 40 kilos on him so it’s a bit handier when it’s like that!"
On the tap and go plays...
"We were sitting in the gym on Monday in a skills block and I think Nick Timoney said, ‘do you think this would work, it would be quite funny.’
I stood five metres back with John Andrew and John Cooney kicked the ball to him and it was like ‘that’s going to be tough to defend.’
If you’re sprinting onto the ball and Cooney hits a good kick for you and to be fair to the coaches, they took it on board and said, ‘yeah, go for it.’
And I think Hendy came up with the maul ones, so it was quite player led those ones to be fair!"
On keeping faith with the system...
"It’s tough. You’d love to say it’s easy and you’re sticking to a plan, and you know it’s going to work eventually but I’ve had doubts the last few weeks when it wasn’t working and I’m sure other people had doubts.
But the coaches and senior players are sticking with it and knowing eventually it will turn.
Coaches say a lot about us working hard during the week and training has been good but it actually has and the last few weeks have actually been very good we maybe haven’t quite put out what we’ve wanted to in the field but we were quite confident that what we’ve been doing in training would eventually pay off. It’s just a matter of time and hopefully that is a turning point and we need to back it up next week and the week after but I do think it’s coming."
Be there for our Christmas Interpro clash!
Ulster take on Interpro rivals, Connacht Rugby in Round 8 of the BKT United Rugby Championship at Kingspan Stadium.
With tickets selling fast, make sure to secure your tickets for the unmissable derby!