Dan McFarland bemoans Ulster's costly errors

Ulster were trailing 13-5 when the Irish centre picked off Billy Burns ambitious pass in midfield and went half the length of the pitch to score under the posts as Leinster eventually ran out 27-5 winners.

“The interception was the killer, from then on it is a totally different game because we are a lot of points behind at that stage and then everything after that becomes a bit of a non-story,” said McFarland.

“Although that was what finished it for us what caused the problem was having those opportunities in the first half and not making them count

“That is where the issue is because if we had made those count the rest of the game is totally different.

“That was the killer blow but we had lined ourselves up to take that killer blow earlier in the game.

“The disappointment comes from the realisation that we’re a fair bit away from where we want to be and the goals that we have, but it is what it is.”

Centre James Hume got Ulster off to a dream start with a try after just four minutes, but that was to prove to be McFarland’s side’s only score as Leinster kept them blank for the remaining 76 minutes.

“It would have been helpful in winning the game if we could have replicated it,” he said.

“It was a lot of our own doing, we couldn’t hold onto the ball and we gave away penalties in the storm zone.

“I thought we were harshly done by in one of the mauls where we should have had a penalty,

“Normally we can get our maul over the line but we just couldn’t quite manage it even though it looked pretty good.

“Manufacturing another score in the first half was something we needed to do.”

McFarland and Ulster can now turn their attention to the Heineken Cup quarter final in France on Sunday against four-time European Champions Toulouse.

“Every time we play Toulouse it is tough,” he said.

“I know they finished eighth in the league last year but you watch them play and they are certainly one of the best teams in Europe.

“Line speed, offload ability trying to find a weakness in the way they play is really difficult and they probably have the best No9 (Antoine Dupont) in the world I think.

“It’s a challenge but that is a motivation in itself, it’s a different competition it’s the quarter final of the Champions Cup and there is going to be a crowd there.

“We’ll be motivated for that and look forward to the challenge.”

Out-half Ian Madigan feels Ulster showed enough in the Pro14 final to be confident of causing an upset in Toulouse on Sunday.

Ulster must quickly put the disappoint of losing to Leinster behind them as they travel to the Stade Ernest-Wallon for the Heineken Champions Cup quarter-final.

“It’s a disappointing result, you look up at the score board and it is 27-5 and we know that is not the full picture of that game,” stated Madigan.

“We could have gone in ahead if we had of got over the line of one of those mauls.

“I thought we started the game really well and were competitive but they were really impressive in the second half.

“There defence was excellent and even when I came on we did our best to try and stay in the game but on the night they were very good.

“I think we got a lot of confidence from Edinburgh, as the second half went on we started to click and we took a lot of confidence form that.

“We knew we had to be at our best to beat Leinster and it wasn’t our night,

“We have Toulouse on Sunday and we know we can take positives from that game and on the back of that we can go to France and win.

“We can regroup from that and there are massive positives to take.

“It came down to a few small moments and in fairness to Leinster they took them and congratulations to them they are a very good side.”

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