Dan McFarland relishing having another crack at Toulose

Dan McFarland’s side will travel to the Stade Ernest-Wallon for the first leg on the weekend of April 9th with the return match the following weekend in Belfast.

Ulster’s last visit to the French city on the banks of the River Garonne ended in a 36-8 defeat at the quarter-final stages of the tournament two years ago, while Toulouse won 29-22 in Belfast during the pool phase last season.

Ulster did topple the five-time European champions 15-13 in the 1999 quarter-finals on route to lifting the trophy.

McFarland is looking forward to having another tussle with Toulouse, who are currently sitting second in the Top 14 table.

He said: “It is a bizarre scenario this year, isn’t it? You win all your games and you finish second in a pool of 12, we genuinely deserved to be second, we played all four games and played two teams that were genuinely up for the competition, and the reward is playing Toulouse.

“I relish the thought of playing Toulouse. They’re one of if not the greatest rugby team in Europe over the last 50 or 60 years, and we’ve had a crack off them in the last few years on a number of occasions.

“We know how tough they are to beat, but that’s another chance for us to test ourselves against them. If it is Toulouse, so be it, any team you play in the last 16 is going to be good.

“We had two teams who were genuinely interested in the competition, who went hard in all of those four games, we earned those wins. So there’s a lot of kudos to the players and the staff for that achievement in and of itself.”

McFarland is glad Ulster will be at home in the second leg.

“When I was at Connacht I played in a number of back-to-back games where you were away first,” he said.

“I personally prefer going away first and then coming home, but it is what it is, you’ve two games to put up the points. First up away, it’s tougher, yes but we don’t mind going away. We’ve had some good away wins this year.”

Ulster scored five tries in the 34-31 win over Clermont on Saturday night but three late tries from the visitors meant McFarland’s team were hanging on at the end.

“I think we played some fantastic rugby to get out to 30 points,” he said. “It was testament to the way the lads played this evening, some brilliant attacking rugby, some brilliant defensive rugby.

“The only thing that marred the first half was errors in exiting our half which allowed them to build their 12 points.

“Some of the tries we scored, the combination of maul, hanging onto the ball in the opposition 22 and some fantastic rugby out from our own 22 really staged what characterised the match.

“The fact that in the last 10 minutes we sat on our laurels was almost quite French, and for me as a coach I found that very disappointing, but that’s something I will address with the players, and we’ll look at what it takes not to sit on our laurels.”

Rob Herring scored two first half tries for Ulster while Michael Lowry also went over, Morgan Parra landed four penalties for Clermont as they trailed 17-12 at half time.

Duane Vermeulen and Robert Baloucoune got Ulster’s tries after the break before Jaco van Tonder, Alivereti Raka and Judicael Cancoriet crossed for the French side to set up a nervy finish.