TEN POINTS UP, what could go wrong for Ulster? The answer was written on the scoreboard here at the Kingspan Stadium on 80 minutes.

Somehow Connacht came from a man down and 10 points down to win. For Ulster coach, Dan McFarland, there was that sickening feeling that comes when defeat is snatched from the jaws of victory.

With the game in the closing moments, Ulster had the lead and crucially, they also had possession. They lost the ball and subsequently they lost this game.

“We had the game in the bag and there was a turnover from a driving maul and it was a terrible decision from the referee,” McFarland said afterwards.

“The maul had broken up and it was a one on one tackle and he gave it as a maul turnover.

“Then obviously a couple of errors for us followed.”

Asked what he thought of Ulster’s performance, McFarland replied: “Not very good.”

He continued: “They came with one thing on their mind.

“When we played them up in Galway earlier in the season, we absolutely duffed them in the collisions and they came here and knew they had to take us on there and they did. They got the better of us in the collisions tonight.

“They came flying off the line, they were offside a lot.

“On the occasions when we kept the passes shorter we cut them open.

“We got better at that in the second half and caused them some trouble, and got our maul going.

“Our scrum was strong, but it was probably our lacklustre collisions that got us in a bit of trouble when we shouldn’t have been.”