RICHIE MURPHY COULD only express his disappointment at the manner of Ulster’s 26-19 loss to Connacht and pointed out that missed chances by his players might have made a difference to the outcome.
The northern province, hit by injuries particularly in their midfield – prompting Jacob Stockdale to don the 13 jersey – found the going tough against a seemingly much more in tune Connacht whose Ireland squad members made a difference.
Though Ulster did battle back to collect a losing bonus point, the defeat was their first at home this season in all competitions and might come back to bite them as they have yet to face Leinster, Munster, Glasgow and the Stormers ahead of the play-offs.
“(There were) a couple of chances, if we had of got ourselves ahead it could have been a different game,” said Murphy whose son Ben had, along with Josh Ioane, made a difference when sprung from the Connacht bench.
“It’s very disappointing to concede our first loss here at the Affidea (Stadium) this year,” Murphy said.
“A couple of injuries early on (in the game), and a couple of injuries in the team means that we weren’t quite as cohesive as we normally would be.”
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“We’ve plenty of things that we need to be better at for next week (away to bottom team Zebre) but credit needs to go to Connacht, they turned up here, they had a plan and they executed it pretty well,” he said of Stuart Lancaster’s play-off chasing side who earned a bonus point and racked up a fourth win on the spin.
Richie Murphy and his assistant, Jimmy Duffy. Nick Elliott / INPHO
Nick Elliott / INPHO / INPHO
“Physically they did really well, and though we still created enough opportunity, we just probably weren’t clinical enough in certain areas,” he added with one gilt-edged scoring opportunity lost when Ben Carson knocked on with the line in front of him.
Murphy continued: “The format of our team has changed hugely in the last couple of weeks.
“Your centres are so pivotal to how we play the game,” he stated of Ulster’s lack of fit midfielders, “and then losing Mikey Lowry after two minutes this week and then losing Dave Shanahan last week (in Edinburgh) after two minutes and a couple of weeks before that we lost Mikey in the first play (at Scarlets).
“So, a bit of luck wouldn’t go astray, and bounce of the ball just seemed to be going the other way.
“We’ll roll our sleeves up now and get ready for Zebre.”
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'A bit of luck wouldn't go astray': Injury-hit Ulster fall to first loss in Belfast this season
RICHIE MURPHY COULD only express his disappointment at the manner of Ulster’s 26-19 loss to Connacht and pointed out that missed chances by his players might have made a difference to the outcome.
The northern province, hit by injuries particularly in their midfield – prompting Jacob Stockdale to don the 13 jersey – found the going tough against a seemingly much more in tune Connacht whose Ireland squad members made a difference.
Though Ulster did battle back to collect a losing bonus point, the defeat was their first at home this season in all competitions and might come back to bite them as they have yet to face Leinster, Munster, Glasgow and the Stormers ahead of the play-offs.
“(There were) a couple of chances, if we had of got ourselves ahead it could have been a different game,” said Murphy whose son Ben had, along with Josh Ioane, made a difference when sprung from the Connacht bench.
“It’s very disappointing to concede our first loss here at the Affidea (Stadium) this year,” Murphy said.
“A couple of injuries early on (in the game), and a couple of injuries in the team means that we weren’t quite as cohesive as we normally would be.”
“We’ve plenty of things that we need to be better at for next week (away to bottom team Zebre) but credit needs to go to Connacht, they turned up here, they had a plan and they executed it pretty well,” he said of Stuart Lancaster’s play-off chasing side who earned a bonus point and racked up a fourth win on the spin.
“Physically they did really well, and though we still created enough opportunity, we just probably weren’t clinical enough in certain areas,” he added with one gilt-edged scoring opportunity lost when Ben Carson knocked on with the line in front of him.
Murphy continued: “The format of our team has changed hugely in the last couple of weeks.
“Your centres are so pivotal to how we play the game,” he stated of Ulster’s lack of fit midfielders, “and then losing Mikey Lowry after two minutes this week and then losing Dave Shanahan last week (in Edinburgh) after two minutes and a couple of weeks before that we lost Mikey in the first play (at Scarlets).
“So, a bit of luck wouldn’t go astray, and bounce of the ball just seemed to be going the other way.
“We’ll roll our sleeves up now and get ready for Zebre.”
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