ULSTER HEAD COACH Dan McFarland believes the hunger within his squad for minutes on the pitch is driving them on to bigger and better things this season.
Despite making nine changes to his side for their clash with the Ospreys at Kingspan Stadium, Ulster looked sharp and clinical in running seven tries past the hapless Welsh region on their way to a 47-17 bonus point win.
The victory lifts them up to second in the United Rugby Championship and was a testament to the growing squad depth at the province as they rotated from the previous week’s defeat to Leinster and still got the job done.
Despite the changes, it was still some familiar faces that were on the scoresheet as John Cooney kicked six of his seven conversions, while Sam Carter and Luke Marshall both crossed the line twice, while Stuart McCloskey was also among the tries again.
But McFarland was thrilled with how his much-changed line-up went about their business professionally, wrapping up the four tries by the 33rd-minute, and believes that will stand to them throughout the campaign.
“There’s hungry guys in our squad. The squad is playing well and doing some good stuff, and they did that even last week, even though we didn’t play as well as we can do. That was a tough game against a tough team,” he explained.
“But there’s positivity in how we’re playing and guys are mustard to play. If they miss out on any game time then they get really hungry for the minutes they get, and I think you saw that in the determination they put in when their name is called.”
It was also the perfect tonic to that 20-13 loss at home to Leinster a week prior when they were decidedly off-colour in horrific conditions at Kingspan Stadium in suffering their first reverse of the campaign.
McFarland conceded that the loss took its toll on the squad, but he was pleased with how they battled through that disappointment to put in another performance that saw them look much more like the side that swatted aside Connacht and the Scarlets in their opening two rounds.
“I think we showed great spirit in bouncing back after losing at home last week, which is good to see,” he praised.
“We didn’t really need to talk about it much, my gut told me we would see that and we did.
“The fact that we managed that second half pretty well given the disruption in pivotal positions we had, with poor Ian going off after playing so well in the first half, Billy coming on and then having to go off, Stu McCloskey having to go off – we ended up with Mikey at 13, then at 10, and then Coons on the wing.
“There was a lot of disruption around that but I felt until the final minute we managed that second half pretty well.”
McFarland stayed relatively quiet on the injured players, although he did reveal fly-half Ian Madigan was left in a brace after the game, while tighthead prop Marty Moore failed a head injury assessment, which is a concern ahead of their two-week trip to South Africa.
“I’d be pretty hopeful the other guys will be okay,” added McFarland.
