Benetton draw feels like a loss to Ulster boss Dan McFarland

The home side who trailed 10-5 at the break, scored an early try from Louis Ludik before Rob Herring was mauled over in the second half to tie the scores 10-10, ahead of a last-ditch driving maul which was, in referee Nigel Owens’ opinion, illegally impeded as it made its way over the Benetton line in the last minute.

Benetton scored tries in either half through lock Federico Ruzza and winger Ratuva Tavuyara, with Ian McKinley kicking two conversions and a first-half penalty.

The two points put them second in Conference B though the Italians ought to have taken all four points.

Ulster remained in fifth place and in spite of the last ditch drama McFarland said the draw had felt more like a loss.

“We should have won that game. We didn’t play well enough, for a lot of the time we weren’t up to it,” he said.

“Physically I thought they were very strong and we always knew that was going to be the case and we struggled to deal with it defensively and in attack. It feels like a loss. We should have been better.”

Ulster showed eight changes from the side which had beaten Leicester Tigers a week previously to secure a quarter-final place in Europe.

McFarland said: “There was a six-day turnaround and we came into that game with a lot of fresh faces and we showed a little bit of naivety in the game as well in some of the play. I need to know what I did wrong in the build-up to this game.”