Ulster primed for Paris trip as Best tells team to ‘back it up’
IT has been quite a while since there has been anything resembling a feelgood atmosphere around the Kingspan Stadium.
And for the first turgid 40 minutes on Saturday evening, it looked like being the familiar story for Ulster – a lot of huff and puff, very little blowing down the doors.
But come the final whistle, the 13,152 who packed into Ravenhill headed off into the sodden Belfast night giddy with excitement about the possibilities that may lie ahead.
The reality for Ulster is that it is likely to be at least another year before they are anything like title contenders, yet there were enough positives from the performance against Leicester Tigers to suggest that they are heading in the right direction under Dan McFarland.
Coming into Europe on the back of a three-game winless run was far from ideal, which heaped even more pressure on the players to deliver.
Such is the quality of opposition in Pool 4, there is very little wiggle room, so from that end, starting the campaign with a home win was non-negotiable.
McFarland was left to wonder how his side managed to go into the break scoreless, despite George Ford spending 10 minutes in the bin for a high tackle on Champions Cup debutant Michael Lowry.
The new head coach got a response from his players in the second half however, the introduction of Marty Moore for his long overdue debut helping Ulster score 24 points as they out-muscled and out-thought a poor Leicester side, which merely underlined the scale of the task on Geordan Murphy’s hands.
For all of the positives – and there were a few, particularly Will Addison’s performance (he looks like an excellent bit of business) – Ulster will be frustrated with several aspects of their fractured play.
The woeful conditions certainly played a part but even still, the home side’s accuracy was poor and it took them over 40 minutes to realise that ‘up the jumper’ kind of stuff was the order of the day. If they had done sooner, a bonus point would have been a certainty.
They rallied well and problem-solved on the hop, which is a huge plus for a team who are pretty much starting from scratch again.
“As everyone knows, if you want to be in the mix come January, you need to win your home games,” captain Rory Best said as he looked ahead to Saturday’s game away to Racing 92 – who beat Scarlets in Llanelli on Saturday thanks to a late penalty try.
“Internally, we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to back up the performances.
“It’s something we’ve been guilty of in the past couple of seasons. It’s important we back it up. If you go back to last season, we played La Rochelle here and put in a big performance and then we went away to Wasps and flattered to deceive.
“It’s important we prepare well and, regardless of what the external expectations are, put pressure on ourselves to put in a big performance.”
Second-half tries from Alan O’Connor, Addison and Jacob Stockdale, along with nine points from the ultra-reliable boot of John Cooney, ensured that Manu Tuilagi’s late converted try was a mere consolation.
Ulster will at least go to Paris with some of their confidence restored.
“They’re a quality side, it’s going to be a tough challenge,” Best warned. “If we thought that Leicester were big then Racing are going to take it to another level. They’re probably second favourites for the competition.
“It’s going to be a massive task but since the Heineken Cup was revamped, there aren’t any easy groups. We’re away to the top seeds.
“We’ll go there and we’ll prepare like we always do. We’ll aim to take a big step forward.
“They haven’t been completely infallible this season and we’ll go, take that little bit of confidence and aim to stop them. You can’t let a team like that get their tails up.”
Lowry (20) has a big reputation
in Ulster and judging by Saturday night, it is easy to see why. He recovered well from an early handing error under the high ball to put in an assured performance that had Best pointing out just how young he is.
“The frightening thing with Michael is that my (son) Ben is closer in age to him than he is to me,” the skipper smiled.
A groin injury halted Lowry’s progress last year after he had led his school RBAI to three consecutive Senior Cup titles. The setback also meant that he missed out on a season with the Ireland U-20s.
Normally an out-half, the diminutive youngster didn’t shy away from the physical stuff and mixed some electric game-breaking moments to justify McFarland’s faith in him as he turned his attention to Racing.
“It is not a big call, you make a decision if you think a player has got the ability to play and improve your side,” the Ulster boss said.
“Next week is a different kettle of fish – we’re indoors, on an artificial pitch, against a team that will be very different to Leicester in the way they play and the threats they have, but we’ll approach that with confidence.
“I know from playing against them in the Champions Cup that you can’t go to Paris and be shy in the way that you play, it’s just not possible
“There’s not going to be any need for getting players up for it. Ulster is a proud province and we’re going to go there and fight for every inch we can.
“Is it going to be easy? No it’s not. But we’re going to relish that challenge.”
Ulster go to Paris next week with a morale-boosting win that will help make Racing look that bit less daunting than they might have a week ago.