Rich rivals can’t match Ulster’s identity and desire: McFarland
ULSTER head coach Dan McFarland admitted his side were taught a lesson during their 4412 reverse to Racing 92 in Paris on Saturday.
But McFarland also launched a passionate defence of his Ulster set-up which appears in sharp contrast to the monied French aristocrats.
From their hyper-modern home ground — more an arena than a stadium — to their expensive array of stars, the differences between Racing and their weekend visitors appeared stark throughout. McFarland, though, does not believe that the gap between such sides and his own is becoming insurmountable.
“I don’t see that as a gap, I see it as two teams,” he said. “They just work in a different resources world to us. At no stage were we ever sitting there saying we desperately want those resources, we are what we are.
“We have strengths that I believe they don’t have and we’ll use those.
“Ulster has a proud tradition, it’s a province with an identity, it’s a province that has a deep legacy and a hunger among its fanbase and players to do well.
“As a team, that’ll be our strength going forward and we’ll build on that. It’ll be about getting good players together and pulling them together as a team.”
The province created a hatful of chances in La Defense Arena but could only come away with two tries in contrast to the five bagged by their far more ruthless hosts.
“We got a glimmer of what we are capable of, then we got a lesson in accuracy,” added McFarland (right).
“Throughout the game we demonstrated we can cause them trouble, but ultimately there were a couple of things that needed to go right for us to be competitive throughout and have a chance of winning.”
They sit third in their pool after two games, with one loss and one win, and play Scarlets in a decisive double-header in December.
“We’re a work in progress,” McFarland added. “We’ll keep working on where we want to go and the style of play we want to play, we’ll work on the defensive side and the set piece.
“We’ve got the Scarlets coming up — we have three games in four weeks against the Scarlets in December. But we have Dragons at home this week and the last two games we had in the PRO14 we lost, one we were comfortably beaten and the Connacht game was a disappointing game even if it came down to a couple of cards and a couple of things we did wrong. We have to rectify that next week, that’s massive for us.
“Then we go to Treviso in what’ll be an extremely difficult fixture, so that’ll be important.”
“We’re playing against good teams, there’s certainly that. There are areas we’re getting better at, but we’re a little bit up and down.”
FOR Ulster skipper Rory Best, Saturday’s defeat felt like something of a point dropped.
The 44-12 scoreline left little doubt over who was the better team but having scored two tries in the first 25 minutes through Dave Shanahan and Nick Timoney, the visitors certainly created enough opportunities to bag two more and bring a try bonus back to Belfast.
Their inability to turn opportunities into scores was in stark contrast to last season’s beaten finalists, who took advantage of Ulster’s set-piece struggles to cross the whitewash five times.
“The scoreline suggests we were well-beaten but I think there were parts within the game where we really had a chance,” said Best. “The difference is that at one stage when they were ahead, it felt like they took every opportunity they had.
“Some of that was our own doing. You want to be rock solid in all your aspects of the game but sometimes you have bits that aren’t as good as you’d like them to be. You’ve got to have enough about you to scramble and fight and make sure they don’t become seven-pointers.
“That’s a learning for us. But having said that, there were aspects of the game we’ll be real- ly happy with. We went through phases, troubled them a lot — especially early on — then in that latter part.
“At 30-12, we had a couple of really good opportunities to take it to 30-19 and then you have a chance of coming away with a losing bonus point at a minimum, maybe two points if you get another try.
“There were aspects we’ll be happy with and aspects that probably show the difference between a team that are favourites to win the competition and a team that are trying to take a step forward to get themselves into a position where they win tight games like that.”
Best added that he didn’t believe what was a good game of rugby should be remembered for the mini controversy surrounding Simon Zebo.
The former Munster full-back bagged his side’s final score of the game late on, taunting Ulster’s 20-year-old full-back Michael Lowry on the way past.
“We all know Zebo and I think he gets a bit over-exuberant at times. As far as I know, he’s apol-
ogised to Mikey. Simon loves to celebrate and sometimes he celebrates before he scores and sometimes he celebrates after.
“As far as we’re concerned, he apologised to Mikey. I didn’t see the end of it but I think Simon probably feels that it probably wasn’t the right thing to do.
“He’s apologised and it’s important we don’t make what was really a good game of rugby from both sides. Simon just sometimes gets carried away. He’s a great fella and you let him have the odd one.”
Zebo himself was remorseful. “I’m still sick about it,” he said. “I had to wait 10 minutes outside the dressing-room to give him my jersey and apologise again.
“I’ve played the game for I don’t know how many years and I’ve never done anything like that, I just got too excited.
“I probably built up the game a bit too much in my head this week and let the emotions get the better of me for a few seconds.
“You live and learn, I wouldn’t want my kids to do that I’m and I’m disappointed with myself.
“I feel (bad), but he’s a lovely fella. As soon as I went over to apologise he was very receptive, we’d a good chat after the game. There’s no ill-feelings or anything. These things happen, but I’d prefer if they didn’t happen to me.”
When all is said and done after the first two rounds of European action Ulster sit third in
the pool with one win, one loss and no bonus points.
Whether they carry any European interest into 2019 will come down to the December back to backs with Scarlets, the Welsh side having lost both of their own encounters.
“I don’t think it’s changed a lot,” said Best of Ulster’s progression prospects. “There was a feeling before it that you’ve got to win your home games and get as many points away from home as you can. I think we had an opportunity here to get at least one point and we haven’t got it.
“We had a couple of opportunities at the end of last week to get another point, which we didn’t. “Racing, as number one seeds, look like the team to beat in our pool but at the same time, we have four games now that we feel are four winnable games. Historically, you’ll see that if you can get five our of six or four out of six with some bonus points along the way, you have a chance.
“We have back-to-back games against Scarlets, they’re going to be fighting for their lives and I think, to a certain extend, so are we because we need to get something over there and probably need a win.”
“We’re not going to scramble. You saw last year that Scarlets lost their first two games and got through.
“We have to first make sure that we go back to the PRO14 and take the aspects that were pleasing over the last two weeks, march them forward, and the look at those little bits of improvement.
“Where we are at this point, early in the season, it’s all about trying to improve. About trying to put steps forward together.”