OF HIS 92 matches in charge, his 58 wins, this was the best. Dan McFarland was initially reluctant to admit that. The question was asked a second time. Finally he caved in.
“It’s pretty big,” the Ulster head coach said. “There are not many teams that come to Dublin and win. It’s pretty big. What answer do you want? An order? Okay, yeah, it’s the biggest. There you go; everybody happy?”
Certainly everyone in the Ulster camp was satisfied with how Saturday’s drama unfolded in the RDS.
It is eight years since they last won here, seven games since they beat them anywhere.
To add further context, Ulster once went nine years without losing to Leinster. Since that run ended, way back in the 1992/93 season, these sides have met one another on 58 occasions. Ulster have won just 12 of those, Leinster 43, three other matches ending in a draw.
“We don’t have monkeys on our backs,” said McFarland when asked about the significance of Saturday’s 20-10 win. “It’s a big result. On its own, it’s four points like any other four points but it’s the ultimate test in our league to come here and the guys did a good job.
“I’ve only been here since 2018 so 2013 to 2018 (is not relevant). We’re focused on what we’re doing. There’s no negative to that but I’m just happy that we won. Even the players, they’re enjoying the moment, they’re living in the moment.
“I get that, definitely, that they (the supporters) may feel the history but I can’t afford to do that. This is the sharp end; you have to focus on the here and now.”
Right now he has players in form, no one more so than Nick Timoney, the former Leinster player who has discovered the best form of his career in the last 12 months.
“Nick can play anywhere across the back-row. It’s interesting because he’s a phenomenal athlete. That’s the first thing. He’s a very competitive individual and he has a great skill set.
“For a while he has been a good player who has hovered around doing some good things in games but over the last 12 months he’s made a conscious personal decision that he’s going to grab his personal development by the scruff of the neck and say ‘look, I’ve got to make more impact on the game, I’ve to do more, I can’t just do good stuff, I’ve got to actually impact the game.’
“With Ireland (last week) he came on and looked as if he wanted to play 80 minutes in the time that he had. That was why on Saturday (against Leinster) he had to make an impression because they have superb players in their back-row. All our back-rowers were up against it but I thought they matched them well.”
To help matters further, Duane Vermeulen arrives in Belfast next week, the Springbok World Cup winner coming at the perfect time.
“We have now entered the meaty part of the season – four derbies, four European games, Ospreys away and big Dwayne Peel coming back for the 10th game.
“If rounds one to five were the starter then this is definitely the main course that’s going to decide the dessert.
“It’s a phenomenally tough schedule and we’re going to be tested in the depth of our squad. The challenge is one that we talked about on Monday and it’s exciting, really exciting. It’s an opportunity for us to make some news, for us to drive as individuals to get recognition and international honours. Everything is there for us.”
That point wasn’t lost on James Hume. The Ulster centre is making a bit of a name for himself and on Saturday he produced a man of the match performance, scoring one try, creating another.
“All I’d known in my career up until Saturday was what it was like to lose in Dublin,” said Hume, “that’s the only experience I’ve had. Alan (O’Connor) mentioned before the game at captain’s (run) on Friday, that we didn’t want to come down here and be sitting after the game in the changing room again saying we weren’t nasty enough, weren’t clinical enough. That was a big focus point during the game and we kept on top of that.
“We can take that attitude into the next games now and there’s no better challenge than Clermont away in the first game of the European Cup. That’s huge, and then the inter-pros over Christmas are also massive. The boys are absolutely buzzing.
“I know I was buzzing to get on the pitch this week because I just wanted to play having had no game time (for Ireland).”
And yet his international experience, being involved in Ireland camp, was useful.
“It was probably the toughest three weeks I’ve had to deal with mentally,” said Hume. “I haven’t really had a challenge like that mentally yet. I was trying to draw as much experience from everyone and learning from the likes of Ringer (Garry Ringrose), Robbie Henshaw and Bundee Aki.
“To have no involvement over the three weeks at all is tough mentally tough but I’ve made a few goals written down on my notepad of what I want out of the next block of nine games, and I just kept looking at that over this week and before I went out and at half-time, reminding myself what I want out of this block of nine games going into the Six Nations.”
