Richie Murphy's 'I feel we are getting better' call after Ulster loss to Bordeaux

Ulster have shipped 101 points in their two games and taken no match points, leaving them a mount to climb to reach the knockout stages in Europe.

Ulster had led 19-14 at the half-time break but the French side scored 26 unanswered points following the interval.

"Looking at the first half first, I thought we put some good stuff together and put a very good team under a lot of pressure,” said Murphy. “There were a couple of breakdowns we missed and they take the ball off you if you're not accurate in the outside channels...obviously that was disappointing.

"The territory and possession that we had in the first half, we probably didn't make a good enough impression with what we had.

"The second half, their bench came on, the physicality of the game just went up and we couldn't survive it.

“First half we played some very good rugby and put a good team under pressure, second half we were able to hold onto the ball and defensively they started making yards on us.

"And a couple of decisions went against us which made it very difficult.”

Ulster have now lost their last four games in all competitions and must regroup for a vital inter-pro against Munster on Friday night.

“It’s tough to take but we’re playing in the top competition in Europe and we are playing against two of probably the top four or five teams in Europe on the back of playing another one (Leinster),” said Murphy. “So we are playing three of the top five teams in Europe over the last three weeks.

“It’s difficult, I feel we are getting better, the first half shows that...but in order to play against these types of teams you need to be able to last 80 minutes and we were not quite able to do that.

“When you are playing against a team like Bordeaux you have to be on it for 80 minutes and we are not quite there yet.

“It’s six days to Munster, playing those three teams, then having Munster coming...it is three six-day turnarounds, it’s a brutal schedule.

“We’ll dust ourselves off...the lads are disappointed, but we’ll get up and go again next week.”