Stuart McCloskey hails Ulster's Champions Cup victory over Racing 92 as one of the best European nights of his career

The win at Kingspan Stadium snapped a three-game losing streak for the province and puts them firmly in the mix to reach the last-16 of the Investec Champions Cup.

After taking nothing from their first pool game against Bath last week, it was paramount Ulster put in a big home performance and they took the maximum five match points while Racing left Belfast empty-handed.

“It is right up there I think with the circumstances and the way we have been going, especially that last three weeks,” he said. “We had spoken internally about creating chances and we probably didn’t take them, but you have got to show up at some point and I think we’d showed up and showed what we could do, especially in that first-half.

“I think if we had have won a couple more lineouts we’d have really had them on the rack and they would have been struggling and I think we really showed up.”

McCloskey was delighted to prove the doubters wrong.

“I don’t think last week (Bath) was as bad as people made out and we were right in the game until probably 57 minutes or something,” he added. “The problem was every time the backs made an error – there were a couple of chances if we’d caught the ball – we’d have probably been away ourselves, but we knocked the ball on or gave away a scrum penalty five metres from our line.

"Then you’re under pressure, so I think we were right in the game for 57-odd minutes away from home which was good. We took confidence from that.

“In terms of backing it up, we’ll try to keep getting better and I know that’s such a cliché, but you finally saw some of the stuff we’ve wanted to do for the last nine or 10 weeks of the season.”

The victory over Racing was only Ulster’s second with a try bonus point this season.

Three of the four tries came off tap penalties with McCloskey getting over and he believes the Ulster attack will start to gel as the season progresses.

“My try, it was pretty off the cuff,” he said. “Cooney gave me a good ball, I’m not sure who was ahead of me, it could have been Le Garrec, and I think I’ve got about 40 kilos on him, so it’s a bit handier when it’s like that.

“In attack, you’d love to say it’s easy, you’re sticking to a plan and you know it’s going to work eventually, but I’ve had doubts the last few weeks when it wasn’t working and I’m sure other people had doubts. The coaches and senior players are sticking with it and knowing eventually it will turn.

“Coaches say a lot about us working hard during the week and training has been good, but it actually has and the last few weeks have actually been very good.

"We maybe haven’t quite put out what we’ve wanted to in the field, but we were quite confident that what we’ve been doing in training would eventually pay off.

"It’s just a matter of time and hopefully that is a turning point. We need to back it up next week and the week after, but I do think it’s coming.”

Nick Timoney got Ulster’s first try on four minutes with John Cooney converting before McCloskey’s converted try doubled their lead.

Nolann Le Garrec crossed for Racing before Matty Rea’s unconverted try gave Ulster a 21-5 lead at the break.

Timoney secured the bonus point with his second try on 48 minutes, Racing hooker Janick Tarrit crossed twice, while Cooney added a penalty late on.