'Let yourself dream' rally cry as Ulster's Iain Henderson highlights group goals

Richie Murphry’s side lead until the 83rd minute against the Welsh region and thought they had secured the victory when, leading 22-20, Nathan Doak booted the ball into touch.

But the TMO intervened for foul play earlier in the move before the Scarlets lost the ball. It resulted in Ulster winger Werner Kok being sin-binned and the Scarlets kicked the penalty to touch before launching a strike move off the lineout, with Ellis Mee going over for a converted try.

Ulster face Cardiff at Ravenhill on Saturday night in their final block of 10 consecutive games before the international break and, despite challenging on two fronts to end their 20-year trophy drought, skipper Iain Henderson maintains the team is just trying to improve game by game.

“We haven't once spoken about trying to win silverware, that's not on our radar...we’re trying to progress ourselves as a team and become a team that we would like to watch play rugby,” he said. “That's the way we want to feel when we're playing.

“You can always let yourself dream, can't you?

"I've sat here and sat in round-of-16s and quarter-finals and the semi-finals to know that it only takes one slip-up or one match not to go your way for a whole season almost to flip on its head.”

Henderson was disappointed by the nature of the loss a Parc y Scarlets.

“It was incredibly frustrating,” he said. “We spent most of the second half down in the Scarlets’ 22, we probably should have finished it out, stayed down there and that would have been the game.

"However, we didn’t do that and we let a few things slip.

“In the first half we let a few opportunities slide that we should have taken and that is incredibly frustrating for us.

“We felt the Scarlets’ position in the league wasn’t doing them justice we didn’t underestimate them coming here and they put in a hell of a performance.”

Bryn Ward got one of Ulster’s three tries. Henderson has hopes for the future with Ward plus Queen’s second row duo Charlie Irvine and Joe Hopes.

“Bryn, we've seen him about...saw him play in the 20s and was incredibly excited about him then,” said Henderson. “He was frustrated over the last year or 18 months, he had a few injuries...but that time probably gave him extra time in the gym, being able to have extra training sessions and maybe slightly figure things out.

"Like a caged bull and now look at him out there...it's great to see he plays with a level of aggression and youthfulness that I find inspiring and I think a lot of the players do feel that.

“Charlie and Joe, I've obviously seen them for maybe two, three seasons now and I've seen the potential that they do have...those guys have only scratched the surface.

“There's heaps of others we can continue to name and a handful of others who I don't think have really broken through yet.”