Ulster record points tally in loss 'wasn't part of the plan' for Richie Murphy

Ulster were undone by an Antoine Dupont masterclass as the six-time European champions scored a point a minute in the first half and had the luxury of emptying their bench pretty early in the second half, still outscoring the visitors by three tries to two after the interval.

“Conceding 61 points wasn't part of the plan, a lot of the basics weren't at the level we needed them to be, we defended poorly at times,” stated Murphy following the loss. “Some of our defence, breakdown and attack, just wasn't at the level needed at this level.

"Our breakdown didn't function anywhere near the level it's been at today, we were exposed in that area.

"They were very good with ball in hand, but we also have to give them the time and space to be able to play and that's probably what we did.

"You could see they had us in the outside channels, which is something that's disappointing and we have to work on.

"It's something that we haven't been exposed to before now.

"What we talk about in (the dressing room) is between us, I'm not going to talk about it in public.

“We're disappointed.

“The players are disappointed, we don't go out there to get those kind of basic errors wrong that we did.

“We need to start there and build towards getting a performance in six days' time when we face Bordeaux.

"We also need to be careful we don't listen to too much on the outside and concentrate on our own game and get better.

"We've shown signs that we're improving all through the season from where we were last year.

"We ran into a European juggernaut, and we just weren't at the races."

Despite a third consecutive defeat in all competitions – and a fifth reversal in eight games this season – Murphy did take some positive aspects away from France.

“Scoring three tries against Toulouse is a decent return and if we had have been able to squeeze that last one out, walking out of here with a bonus point mightn't have been too bad,” said Murphy. “I thought our maul defence was quite good at times and our scrum went pretty well against a top, top scrum, so there was that.”

Murphy decided to start with an inexperienced side against the European and French champions and, despite the mauling, thinks it will be a good learning curve for the players.

"I think it'll be massive for them, quite a few guys there making their European debut, quite a few guys with less than 10 caps for Ulster.

"And to come to a place like this and play against a quality outfit like Toulouse will be a big learning for them about what the real level is.”

Centre Ben Carson had to leave the pitch early due to a knee injury but Murphy expects him to be fit for the now must-win game against Bordeaux at Kingspan Stadium on Saturday afternoon.