Jacob Stockdale says crucial Ulster victory outweighed unimpressive performance against Dragons in United Rugby Championship
Jacob Stockdale felt the result was more important than the performance as Ulster scraped a 34-30 bonus point win over the Dragons at Rodney Parade.
Ulster had trailed by 10 points at half-time to the bottom side in the league and were nine points in arrears during the final quarter, but a piece of brilliance by prop Scott Wilson won a jackal turnover on Dragons full-back Huw Anderson before sprinting over for a try, with eight points from the boot of John Cooney giving Richie Murphy’s victory.
The crucial win has propelled the province from 14th to ninth in the United Rugby Championship table, just a point outside the playoff spots.
“It is not going to go down in history as one of our best games, but it was a very important win for us,” said Stockdale.
“It wasn’t the prettiest thing in the world and we’ll be disappointed with a lot of the things we put out on the pitch.
"I thought the way we built our way into the game in the second half and ultimately how we were very ruthless at the end of the game to make sure we got the five points was big for us.”
Ulster were behind 24-14 at the interval and had to fight back after the break.
Stockdale added: “We were all aware of the fact that we hadn’t performed particularly well in the first half.
"We gave away a lot of silly penalties and our energy probably wasn’t where it needed to be. That, combined with Richie [giving us a rocket] was really good for us and we came out in the second half and performed a lot better.
“I think the bench coming on… Scotty getting man of the match off the bench, you don’t see that often and Coons (John Cooney) sped the game up really well. There were a number of factors in the second half that meant we were able to get over the line.”
Ulster face the two South African teams, the Stormers and Sharks, plus Leinster, Munster and Edinburgh in their last five games and Stockdale knows improvement is needed if they want to make the top eight.
“We’re really happy to get the win but if you look at the performance, we felt we were the better team and maybe could have put them away in the first half,” he said.
“We are happy that we got the result but at the same time there is a lot to work on and we are very much aware of that.”
Ulster face the Stormers at Kingspan Stadium next Friday night. The Cape Town side are a point and place ahead of Murphy’s team.
Looking ahead to the game Stockdale said: “We are really excited about it and we kind of have a bit of momentum going now with a couple of wins, so it seems a good time to have a big team like the Stormers coming to our stadium.
“They obviously pose a massive threat but I’m excited about it. They are always a good team to play against so hopefully we can do the business again on Friday night.”