Ulster are still waiting for their first United Rugby Championship win of the season after four matches, but head coach Richie Murphy insists his side are only “small margins” away from turning things around. Despite the winless start, Ulster sit just one point outside the play-off places.
The Irish province opened the campaign with a defeat to Edinburgh, followed by two thrilling draws against Glasgow and Munster, before losing to the Bulls in the first leg of their South African double-header. The pattern has been frustratingly familiar: slow starts, brave fightbacks, but no win to show for it.
Richie Murphy (Credits: BBC Sport)
Ulster’s Winless URC Start: Slow Starts, Brave Comebacks
Murphy admits his team have been “digging a bit of a hole” in every match so far, allowing opponents to build early and often significant leads. Each time, Ulster have fought their way back into contention, yet each time the comeback has fallen just short of victory.
“Obviously, we’re not quite getting the results that we wanted, but we’re in every game,” Murphy said. “We’re playing against top-class opposition and we’re fighting for everything we can get.” It is a glass-half-full view, but the league table backs him up: four games without a win, and still within touching distance of the top eight.
There was at least one win to savour recently, with Ulster beating Zebre in their Challenge Cup opener, proof that this squad knows how to close out a match when it clicks.
What Richie Murphy Says Must Change Before the Stormers
Asked what needs to improve, Murphy pointed to the fine details rather than any sweeping overhaul. “It’s really important that we don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. We will stick to our process and stick to what we believe in,” he said.
“We’re not a million miles away from winning opportunities to win every one of those matches,” he added. “If we could be a little bit better at the breakdown, or if our pass quality could be a little bit better. All these tiny little aspects of the game add up to wins.”
Consistency, above all, is the target. “In each of the games that we’ve played, we’ve played some very high-class rugby in both attack and defence, but we haven’t been consistent,” Murphy said. “If our execution can very slightly improve, it’s amazing what that will do to the results.”
The next test could hardly be tougher. Ulster face the Stormers in Cape Town on Saturday (12:45 GMT), without their nine-strong Ireland cohort, while the Stormers are expected to have Springbok stars such as Siya Kolisi, Evan Roos and Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu available. “We’ll stick to the process, believe in what we’re trying to do and we believe that the results will come,” Murphy said. A first URC win in Cape Town would be the perfect way to prove him right.
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Source: BBC Sport — read the full story there.
