We’ll fight for every inch, says Ulster boss McFarland
ULSTER have never lost away to Benetton but it would have been a brave man to bet on them maintaining that run 40 minutes into Saturday’s contest in the Stadio di Monigo.
Trailing 7-3 at the turn, the visiting province were second best in the first-half and in truth were hugely fortunate to be heading for the sheds trailing by just four points. But Dan McFarland, whose oft-repeated mantra has been that his side will ‘fight for every inch’ saw his side look much more ready for battle in the second-half where a big improvement in ball retention and the set-piece allowed them to escape with a 15-10 win after tries from Sean Reidy and Rob Herring.
“We talked at half-time about not turning the ball over,” said McFarland.
“We had to defend so much in the first-half because we kept turning it over. Our accuracy wasn’t there, our speed to contact, it wasn’t always there.
“Coming out in the second-half, we showed much better urgency. They still kept coming after our ball but we managed to put some phases together and come away with a few tries.”
The result, in what is expected to be a season of laying new foundations, saw the province lifted into second place in PRO14 conference B, trailing only Leinster.
Heading into the break for the Autumn Internationals, the win also puts a buffer between themselves and Benetton who figure to be in mix for a play-off spot come season’s end.
“It was really important this game for us against a good Treviso side who’ll be challenging us in the league,” said McFarland.
“If we won we knew there’d be a bit of distance between ourselves going into the break. We laid that down for the lads but they didn’t really need telling. We trained really well this week.
“We put ourselves under the pump by turning the ball over but we showed the every inch mentality. We fought hard. To go in (only) 7-3 down at half-time was a testament to our defence.
“We’ve battled a lot in this first block. We’ve had a lot of young guys coming through, Academy guys making debuts and James Hume was another one getting a first start, he really played well.
“It’s been tough but we’ve learned that we’ve got that fight for every inch mentality. We’re not going to lose because we lack that.”
Herring, released by Ireland to take part, was a key figure in his side’s resurgence, scoring what proved to be the winning score in the 55th minute. The hooker reserved praise for young centre James Hume, who made a try saving intervention late in the firsthalf on the occasion of his first ever senior start.
“We’ve shown over the last number of games that these are the boys that are going to be playing,” he said of the youth movement witnessed at Kingspan this season. You look at James Hume, coming in for his first start, the try saving tackle he put in at the end of the first half was massive. That’s what we’re about as a squad. Everyone is working hard and buying into it.”
Kieran Crowley’s side will likely believe that they would have been good value for a win had they forced a late score when, just as in the first-half, they were camped in the Ulster half.
Herring was impressed with the hosts, especially given that they were withouth 17 players, the majority of that number caused by international call-ups.
“It was tough,” Herring said. “We expected that.
“They came at us and the firsthalf took a lot out of us. Treviso are a top side now. They’re missing loads of boys but they’ve got strength in depth now and they can still put out a good team. They came at us and we’ll look at that.
“We weren’t clinical enough but they showed good attacking ability and we had to defend our line for pretty much the whole half.” For the vast majority of Ulster’s squad not involved in the international set-up, this is set to be a down week with the PRO14 not resuming until the last weekend of November.
It is expected to be a largely young side that take on Uruguay at Kingspan Stadium on Friday.
“Some of the guys from the senior squad looking game time will play but there’ll be a lot of young players,” said McFarland.”
“Uruguay are an exciting team, I’ve watched a lot of them and they like to throw the ball around.
“That’s brilliant for us because it should be a good spectacle.” BENETTON: J Hayward; R Tavuyara, I Brex, A Sgarbi, T Benvenuti; T Allan, D Duvenage; D Appiah, H Faiva, S Ferrari; I Herbst, A Zanni; D Budd, M Lamaro, M Barbini. Replacements: T Barravalle (for Faiva, 49), A de Marchi (for Appiah, 71), M Riccioni (for Ferrari, 49), N Cannone (for Herbst, 73), G Pettinelli (for Budd, 60), E Gori (for Devenage, 71), A Rizzi (for Hayward, 33), A Esposito (for Ratuva, 68).
ULSTER: P Nelson; R Baloucoune, J Hume, S McCloskey, H Speight; B Burns, D Shanahan; E O’Sullivan, R Herring, M Moore; A O’Connor, K Treadwell; M Coetzee, S Reidy, N Timoney. Replacements: J Andrew (for Herring, 64), A Warwick (for O’Sullivan, 64), T O’Toole (for Moore, 64), C Ross (for Ross, 74), G Jones (for Reidy, 64), J Stewart, J McPhillips, A Kernohan (for Baloucoune, 40)
Star man: Stuart McCloskey (Ulster) Referee: Mike Adamson (SRU)