Richie Murphy delighted as Ulster are buoyed by return of key trio in friendly defeat to Queensland Reds

It was never a match about the result as Murphy was able to welcome back his Ireland international trio of Jacob Stockdale, Stuart McCloskey and James Hume, while there were impressive cameos off the bench for academy players like Jacob Boyd and Tom Brigg.

Stockdale and McCloskey both played 40 minutes while Hume scored a try and got 50 minutes under his belt after an 11-month layoff.

“I thought it was a very entertaining game of rugby. It was great to have the guys back in, Stu, James and Jacob, the two lads did 40 minutes which was planned then James came out either side of half time and did another 10 minutes, then we got him out of there because he had done enough so that was really positive,” explained Murphy.

“Great to see a couple of lads coming back that hadn’t played for the club in a long time. Matty Dalton I thought he had a big effort then some of the academy lads getting a run towards the back end of the game, all in all it was a positive night for us.

“We played a hell of a lot better than when we last played here two weeks ago (vs Zebre) so that was very positive.

“I the think the Reds had 17 Wallabies in that panel of 23 players so that gives you an idea of the calibre of team we were playing against. They played last week and scored 82 points against a very weak Bristol team.

“I though from a defensive point of view we defended reasonably well bar a couple of lapses at certain times, and they tended to be deeper into phases counts where we dropped off the pressure that we were trying to put on them that opened up little door ways which they got through.

“When they get in behind you they are lethal, a lot of very big strong and quick athletes.

“We used the ball really well at times, we got into the 22 a couple of times and probably didn’t quite capitalise and even at the back end of the game, we had a couple of opportunities to get over and get a draw out of it but there were a lot of young players out on the pitch at that stage and it is great learning for them.”

Despite the positives the coach is still looking for improvement.

He added “When things get tough we actually step up and tend to make a really good effort. I suppose the challenge for our team is can we be mentally tough at the start and actually try and put teams away.

“We tend to let teams get a head start on us and then we try to get back into the game so it would be nice to be able to try and reverse that mentality where we are actually the aggressors from the start.”