ULSTER BACKS COACH Neil Doak wants his side to sustain their killer instinct when they face Clermont in Stade Marcel Michelin this Sunday.
Ulster scored five tries in a thrilling 39 – 32 win over the Top 14 leaders. But, sitting third, they still have great deal of work to do if they are to escape Champions Cup pool 5.
“It’s credit to the players, they brought that level of intensity,” Doak said of a match most judged against international Test standards.
“The most pleasing thing is that we got in the right areas and we were clinical.
“It’s probably the most clinical we’ve been. By the measures we use we were close to 90%, which is absolutely superb against a quality team like Clermont.”
They got off to a great start from their point of view. Credit to the boys for getting back into it. We had a purple patch, put the points on the board and that was the key aspect.”
Though Andrew Trimble and Stuart Olding have stepped up their return, Doak does not expect the pair back in contention for the trip to France. And, bar an injury to Robbie Diack, he expects a similar 23 to take the field this weekend.
One change Doak does hope to see is an improved return from the scrum to force Clermont into working harder for their field position after a worrying late rally at Kingspan Stadium.
“We were probably a bit ill-disciplined. The scrum probably wasn’t as strong as it’s been most of the season. They got a couple of penalties, a little bit of territory, and they were able to get in and put points on the board.
“If we control those areas a bit better then hopefully they won’t get that territory. If we don’t let them into those areas, then hopefully they’ll have to run from a bit deeper.”
And if Clermont are forced away from the set-piece, Les Kiss’ side will back their engine to cope with an open game, having yielded a brilliant Iain Henderson try from a long passage of play on Saturday afternoon.
“There’s parts of that game where there were four-minute passages of play. If we can keep that level of play, level of intensity, play with ball in hand and on the pitch (then) hopefully some of their bigger guys will get tired and we can expose them.”
The42 is on Instagram! Tap the button below on your phone to follow us!
