McFarlandsatisfied as Ulster reaprewards

Ulster scored five tries and conceded only a penalty in defeating the English Premiership side yesterday evening.

“From a result point of view it is nice to get a win but that is not the be-all and end-all,” said McFarland.

“The pleasing thing for us was the number of things we worked on from during the week and we saw fruition in that.

“The play we had inside the Saracens’ ‘22’ that resulted in three tries from phase play was probably the most pleasing thing.

“The fact from the beginning, where they used their size and power to get on top of us physically in the game, we weathered that storm and then managed to neutralise it to a certain extent, which was really pleasing because we are always going to have to come up against teams that are physically bigger than us and more powerful than us, especially up front.

“We have to find ways to manage that and I thought the forwards managed that really well.”

Despite the result McFarland knows Ulster will have to improve for the United Rugby Championship opener against Glasgow next Friday.

“We still have a lot of work to do on our breakdown,” he added.

“There has been one specific change and that is causing us trouble at the moment and is a key for us - we understand that and we have to get through it.”