Richie Murphy pleased by 'massive win' as Ulster get off mark this season with European Challenge Cup success over Zebre

It was Ulster’s first win of the season in any competition after a defeat and two draws in the domestic league and Murphy’s side were made to work for their bonus point win under the new rules.

Under the old format four tries was enough to secure the try bonus point, but European competitions have adopted the French Top 14 model this season which requires teams to score three or more tries than their opponents to secure the extra point.

Ulster outscored the Italians by six tries to three, but it took a late touchdown from replacement Martin Moloney to bank the five points.

“It's massive – massive win for us to the start of the European campaign, obviously. To pick up five points away is huge,” said Murphy.

“The difference with the new bonus point system makes sure that you play right to the end of the game, so I was really happy to hold on to the three-try advantage late on.

“I thought the way we started the game was excellent. We controlled field position, although we kicked really accurately and applied pressure on the opposition, which is really satisfying from our point of view.

“We lost our way a little bit in the second half, but any time that we came under pressure, we managed to find a score in order to keep that advantage of three tries.”

Murphy made sweeping changes to the squad with hooker Henry Waljer and centre David Hawkshaw getting their first starts.

There was a maiden taste of European action for James McKillop while Jamie Benson donned the No10 shirt for the first time competitively and the coach was happy with how his players stepped up.

He added: “There was a bit of a rotation in our squad and some of that was forced through injury or guys' potential to pick up an injury here, but some guys stepped up.

“Henry was excellent, he played 60 minutes and you could see exactly what type of hooker he is. He's into everything and high work rate and was really effective in the loose, so we're really happy with him.

“Marty came on for the last 20 minutes and managed to get a try on the end of it; Henry getting two, Daniel playing his first game for Ulster – he's worked really hard through the summer – and it's nice to be able to give guys debuts.

“When you get a debut, you've got to nail it. Jake Flannery started his first game for us this year and played out of position in the centre. Some of that was forced because of the amount of injuries we have in that area.

“We'll get a few guys back next week and we'll try and keep building.”

Ulster now turn their attention back to the domestic league and a trip to South Africa to face the Bulls and Stormers.

Murphy added: “I think now, on the back of this, we can start moving forward. Confidence in the group has actually been fine, although we've obviously had two draws and a loss the big thing is we've got to go after our processes, and making sure we're doing the right thing in order to put us into positions to win the games.

“We have done that in those two draws that we had, we've come down to the last play of the game with an opportunity to win. We're disappointed because we didn't win them.

“Pretoria will be somewhere in the region at 30 degrees and we're playing in the middle of the day, so it's not an ideal thing for us. We know exactly what's coming and we probably feel that they'll have all their Springboks players available to face us.

“They’re formidable at home, but on the back of this win and on the back of some reasonably good performances, albeit for short spaces of time in our previous three games, we'll build some confidence during the week and try to go over there and get a win.”