GUINNESS PRO12: Pat Lam pleased with some aspects of Connacht display in loss to Ulster

The defending Guinness PRO12 champions had to finish the game with 14 men due to injury and a number of players playing out of position, the defeat leave’s Lam’s side eighth in the table 12 points adrift of the top four.

“We have got nothing out of this, everyone will thing we are out but we’ll keep going to the last day in May, in an intimidating cauldron (Kingspan) the boys never took a backward step and that is what I am really proud of but we just didn’t execute,” said Lam.”

“I can’t fault some guys are playing their first game, some guys haven’t played for a while due to the injury situation.”

“We put Ulster under pressure in the first 20 but came away with nothing and that was a killer blow for us, when we played them last time we kept the ball for long periods of time and when back to back quick tries, we knew we needed to score early and that was the aim, we didn’t then they went 3-0 then their try came out bad system error of our normal defence that when you have Bundee (Aki) and the normal guys there but again I can’t fault them because we didn’t have a training session we just went of the video .”

“I told the players to keep their chins up take the lessons from it and use it to make you better.”

“At 13-0 I thought we were a bit unlucky to be where we were, at 20-7 I thought we were right in there because two more tries its21-20 but then we gave away a penalty.”

“The killer was knock ons because we were given away scrums and territory and that put us under the cosh.”

Ulster’s second try came of a series of scrums although the initial one came after it appeared Connacht scrum half Kieran Marimon had grounded the ball over his own try line.

“I was surprised because I was expecting a 22 drop out, at the time I was doing some work and turned round to the coaches and said how did they get a scrum and they said some one touched it then I looked at the video and couldn’t quite see what happened but George (Clancy) is probably the best guy to see if one of our guys had touched it but I have no complaints about it I was too far away to see anything.”

Connacht dominated the territory and possession in the opening quarter but failed to register any points due to a misfiring lineout.

“There were two key lineouts that we lost but even before that we ran and were trying to get them on the edges but guys were cutting back in to early, we had a four on one and I showed the boys it at half time.”