'Players are accountable' - Richie Murphy sets out 'reaction' plan as Ulster head for Glasgow in URC
Ulster head coach Richie Murphy’s bid for a positive response in Glasgow this weekend to defeat last Friday has been bolstered with five returning players.
Ireland’s Tom Stewart, Nathan Doak, Cormac Izuchukwu, Jacob Stockdale and Bryn Ward each return for Saturday evening’s trip to Scotstoun for the second-round United Rugby Championship clash with Glasgow.
Murphy is looking a reaction after last Friday night’s disappointing defeat to Edinburgh when the head coach was disappointed Ulster only started to play after going 34-5 down.
“I think everyone's striving for an 80-minute performance, it's one of those things...it's like a perfect game of golf, it's hard to get,” said Murphy. “We look back to the game, we look at our breakdown...we knew the pressure that Edinburgh were going to put on us under we didn't deal with that correctly.
“We didn't look after the ball well enough on hand and defensively not connected and not coming forward, which makes for a long evening...we have to make sure that our defence is a weapon to get the ball back, not just to contain the opposition.
“That’s probably the difference on the night.
“Finding solutions is where we've been at the start of the week, we have a really big test coming up going to Glasgow...Scotstoun is a very tough place to go and they don't lose very often there.
“We need a reaction from our troops and that's what we've been doing over the last couple of days, trying to prepare for that.”
Murphy admitted some players will pay the price for the defeat to Edinburgh when it comes to team selection.
“We’ve got a couple more bodies available to us this week,” said Murphy. “We're a squad, we win and lose together, players are accountable for the performances that they put on the pitch...there will be some changes which are natural, one or two guys will miss out on the back of maybe not doing as well as we would have liked.
“They (Glasgow) are in the top four of the league every year, a settled team with a settled coaching team as well...ruck speed, plenty of width, things that probably caused us trouble on Friday night even going to go up a level in relation to this week, so, yeah, work to be done.”
Murphy had assembled his Ireland under 20s coaching ticket at Ravenhill but that broke up in the summer when forwards coach Jimmy Duffy left for Munster. But his replacement, Clarke Dermody, has had an immediate impact.
“He's been brilliant...Clarke is an excellent coach,” said Murphy. “He's come in with plenty of experience from his days down in New Zealand.
“Good conversations with our players and with our coaching team around how do we adjust things slightly...our game model is our game model, what you saw for the 25 minutes is the way we want to attack.
“What you saw in a little bit of that 20 minutes or so is some of the defence that we had done.
"But, for a lot of the game, we were a hell of a long way off where we needed to be.”
Michael Lowry (concussion), Robert Baloucoune (concussion) and Aitzol Arenzana-King (knee) picked up injuries in Friday's URC defeat to Edinburgh so stand unavailable.