Dsan McFarland dismisses speculation over links to Leicester Tigers job as Ulster lose again in Europe

Ulster coach Dan McFarland has dismissed speculation linking him with the vacant Leicester Tigers job after he watched his side suffer a sixth defeat in seven games.

It was also a third consecutive reversal in the European Champions Cup as Ulster lost 7-3 at La Rochelle

The Welford Road club are looking to fill their hotseat after Steve Borthwick left the east Midlands club to become England head coach ahead of the Six Nations.

McFarland recently penned a new contract to stay at the Kingspan Stadium until 2025 which will make him Ulster’s longest serving coach in the professional era.

“I read that as well,” said McFarland on the link to the Tigers.

“I signed my contract back in the Autumn, I really enjoy my job no matter how difficult.

“Sorry, even given the fact that it's difficult, I love my job so that's it.”

For a third consecutive week McFarland had to watch Ulster surrender a match-winning lead with less than four minutes on the clock.

In a game spoilt by the weather conditions against European Champions La Rochelle at the Stade Marcel Deflandre, Nathan Doak’s 63rd minute penalty looked to have secured a vital victory, but replacement prop Joel Sclavi crashed over in the 82nd minute to leave Ulster’s hopes of reaching the knockout stages dangling by a thread.

A home tie in the one-legged round of 16 has disappeared but Ulster can still secure qualification for the knockout stages in a winner-takes-all clash with Sale at the Kingspan Stadium on Saturday night.

McFarland, though, won’ be changing his approach.

“[We will approach it] same way as if we'd won by 60 (against La Rochelle) or lost by 60.

“Sale are a good team, very physical, we have a gameplan in mind that we want to use against them.

“We'll take learnings from the last time we played them which was particularly difficult, it's a match that we want to show our true colours and at least demonstrate to them what we're about because we didn't do it last time.”

“It's all about focusing on a performance that will get us a win.

“Against Sale we're playing at home in the Champions Cup – we haven't had a home game in the Champions Cup yet. We played La Rochelle away twice effectively, we'll really look forward to that.”

With two home games coming up McFarland is confident Ulster can snap their poor run of form.

“We understand that there are areas of our game where we haven't been playing particularly well over the past six weeks but we also understand the context, the opposition we've been playing and the opposition that we've been in.

“We'll keep working and as today shows, we nearly beat the European champions away from home.”

Ulster: M Lowry, R Lyttle, S Moore, L Marshall, J Stockdale, I Madigan, N Doak, R Sutherland, R Herring, J Toomaga-Allen, A O’Connor, K Treadwell; I Henderson (c), N Timoney, D Vermeulen.

Replacements: J Andrew for Herring 65 mins, E O’Sullivan for Sutherland 61 mins, A Warwick for Toomaga-Allen 70 mins, H Sheridan for Treadwell 58 mins, D McCann for Henderson 61 mins, M McDonald, B Moxham for Marshall 26 mins, E McIlroy.

Ref: N Amashukeli (Georgia).