Ryan Bailey reports from Kingspan Stadium
ONCE ONE OF Europe’s protagonists around the turn of the millennium, Leicester Tigers have now lost their last five Heineken Champions Cup games, and could hardly be further away from contending again.
Although the Premiership visitors enjoyed some early scrum dominance on Saturday evening, and initially produced stoic resistance in defence, they offered little in the way of attacking quality, and eventually slumped to a fifth defeat in as many visits to Belfast.
Once Ulster found their accuracy and nailed their execution after a largely stultifying first half, the northern province pulled away and eventually converted their swathes of territory into points, through second-half tries from Alan O’Connor, Will Addison and Jacob Stockdale.
It was a satisfying and encouraging start to the campaign for Dan McFarland’s side, but this was a tough opening-weekend loss for Leicester, who have now lost on eight of their last nine trips to Ireland in the competition.
Murphy was pleased with the way his side ‘controlled’ the opening 40 as they somehow led 3-0 courtesy of George Ford’s early penalty, but ultimately the Tigers fell away as Ulster upped the intensity to duly reap the rewards of their hard work.
Now three years since Leicester’s 13th and most recent appearance in the knockout stages of the Champions Cup, they face into a must-win game against Scarlets next week if they are to harbour any realistic hope of challenging in Pool 4.
“Speaking to the Ulster lads, Rory [Best] had sort of 18 weeks off in the summer and he came back and played one game last week and he looked fresh tonight running around,” Geordan Murphy said afterwards.
“Tom Youngs has played eight games in a row for us and has gone to the well and had to play sort of 70 minutes last week at Twickenham in pretty horrific conditions. We do have tired bodies but that’s not an excuse, and at half-time tonight we were in the game and weren’t fatigued. We just weren’t clinical enough and that’s a huge lesson for us.
“I love watching the Irish teams play, it’s just smart football, the way they put the ball in behind you and turn you. Even when we were 14-3 down tonight, just the way Ulster played, they were very composed and kicking it in behind and making it difficult for us to exit in the wet.
“Putting us under pressure and we need to learn that, we need to be better. It’s a very tough group and it doesn’t get any easier.”
For Murphy, thrown in at the deep end following O’Connor’s sacking after the opening game of this term, it has been a steep learning curve in the top job as his side’s decidedly patchy form continues to fluctuate.
Coming in off the back of a mini-revival in the Premiership, thanks to back-to-back wins over Sale and Northampton, this was a rather rude awakening for Murphy and his players on the European stage.
“We’ve discovered over the last few years that the breakdown is one of the areas of difference from the Premiership, but as it is, it’s knock-out rugby,” he continued. “It’s fight for everything and punish your opposition when you’ve got the opportunities and Ulster did that well tonight.”
Although he believed his players looked ‘fresher’ at the half-time interval, Murphy admits concern over the workload demanded of a squad being stretched further by injuries.
“It’s a tough one to manage because as a head coach I’m trying to think about resting bodies and I’m asking players just to go and back it up and back it up and back it up. It’s really difficult because you want to give the best account of ourselves and you’re having to ask players to back it up, back it up and back it up.
“From that point of view it’s frustrating as I’m constantly looking at the calendar saying ‘where can I get people rest and how can I get them a bit of downtime just to recover their bodies?’ It’s very difficult in the Premiership, I’d like to be coaching this side of the sea.”
Murphy added: “You’re always going to have bumps and bruises and you’ve got him and you haven’t got him. It’s a constant juggling act but I’m enjoying it. I was thrown into the deep end pretty quickly early in the season so it has been challenging but I’ve been learning on the hoof and it has been going alright.
“Obviously the results could be a little bit better. A lot better. But that’s par for the course, I suppose.”
To heighten the task, Leicester face into a quick turnaround before their meeting with Scarlets at Welford Road on Friday night, but Murphy will hope to draw on home comforts and their citadel to redress an unexceptional campaign hitherto.
Last season’s beaten semi-finalists will provide a stiff challenge, particularly when Wayne Pivac’s side are also chasing points after their late defeat to Racing on Saturday, but Murphy is looking forward to the prospect of his first home European game in charge.
“I haven’t been set any targets and we’ll just go out and focus week-to-week at the minute. From my point of view, we want to win next week, it’ll be a really tough game as Scarlets are obviously a quality side and they lost tonight so they’ll be coming for us. But we need to get ourselves together.
“Hopefully it’s a good old evening. 7.30pm kick-off on a Friday night is generally a full house.”
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