Marty Moore keeping faith in Ulster plan

The new competition hasn’t gone well for Dan McFarland’s side - three defeats and the cancellation of the Scarlets game at the weekend due to four players in the squad testing positive for Covid-19 means Ulster are bottom of the league table.

The team has also had to contend with the new experimental rules as the captain challenge has gone against Ulster on two occasions, Connacht ultimately won the game at Kingspan Stadium when they were awarded a penalty that the officials missed which eventually led to the deciding try and against Leinster Iain Henderson had his challenge for a dangerous tackle on Robert Baloucoune by Robbie Henshaw turned down.

Ulster did benefit from the new red card law after Will Addison was sent off against Munster when, instead of being down to 14 men for the rest of the game, they were allowed to bring a replacement on after 20 minutes.