EVEN THOUGH ULSTER are on a five-game losing streak, long-serving back-rower Nick Timoney feels that the province can and will snap out of their current slump in results.

The 29-year-old, who has been with Ulster for nearly a decade, has seen many changes in fortune at the Kingspan Stadium and is now channelling his experience towards a much-needed revival in form which could potentially begin today at Connacht.

“We’re doing our best to fix it, and we feel we’re not that far away,” said Timoney who made his 150th appearance for Ulster in October when Connacht visited Belfast in a game the hosts won.

“They’re at home, they’ll be fired up and our backs are against the wall, as well as they probably feel theirs are, and we have to come out swinging and if we get it right the prize is massive.”

“It feels like a bad run and certainly it is,” he added, “but I’ve talked to a few of the lads who have been around a while, unfortunately it’s nothing we haven’t really seen before and come through before as well.

“As much as things can seem bleak, it’s one of the benefits of experience that you have the confidence that good and bad times generally come to an end, so you’ve just got to dig in and make sure you’re not going quiet because things have gone wrong for a few weeks.”

Both Ulster and Connacht come into this evening’s festive interprovincial off the back of defeats to rival provinces, and though the northern province’s losing run encompasses heavy defeats in Europe, both sides have just won three times from eight rounds of the URC.

“It’s been a tough period,” said Timoney.

“And it’s going to continue to be a tough period with the games we have (Connacht tonight and away to Leicester Tigers in two weeks’ time in Europe), and the only answer can come from within our group.

“We feel as much as we’ve struggled in the past few weeks that the answers are there and that we’ll find them,” added the three-times capped Ireland international.

“None of us are happy with the current state of things, but there have been times before when things felt worse for a number of other reasons.

“Last weekend was incredibly disappointing,” he said of an interpro 14-man Ulster lost in the final play to Munster.

“But it doesn’t feel like it’s getting worse,” he insisted of the performance.

“We’re not lying to ourselves too by saying that we can get it right and go out and win. If that (feeling) wasn’t there, I’d feel worse, but it is there.”