Ulster's Challenge Cup lift comes with 'learnings' from ideal scenario for Richie Murphy
Richie Murphy expressed his delight as Ulster beat Stade Francais 26-19 at Affidea Stadium with a bonus point to top Pool 3 of the European Challenge Cup.
Ulster now stand as one of the top three seeds in the knockout stages of the competition and will have home advantage in the last 16 and a quarter-final if they progress.
It was the proverbial game of two halves against the Parisians as Ulster scored four tries in the first 30 minutes but failed to score for the rest of the game as Stade mounted a comeback, leaving Murphy’s men hanging on at the end.
“We've topped the group, we know there's plenty to work on,” said the Ulster head coach after victory. “Some of our play in the first half was really, really good.
“To go in at 26-0 up at half-time, we were obviously delighted...we lost our way in the second half but we showed great character and fight just to stay in the game when we couldn't get our hands on enough possession and look after it well enough, (we) went away a little bit from what we do really well and, because of that, we come under pressure.
“So, there's plenty of learnings and it's great to get learnings when you actually get a bonus point win and you top the pool and you move on into the next round.
“It’s nice to look back at it knowing that we still have the win, still top of the table and move on to the next stage.
“The lads are disappointed in the second half, we'll look at it on Monday, we'll pick out a few things that we can do better and we'll move on.
"The whole idea today was to get five points and top the pool and we've done that so we should be happy.”
Murphy is still searching for the complete 80-minute performance.
“We were very focused at half-time, talking all the right things...there was an offload in the second half, ball gets kicked in behind, we end up back in at 22, we don't get out of that position easily and then we concede and then we miss a couple of set pieces and we go under pressure,” he said. “They're the things that we have to do better in order to be able to control the games.
"We've had plenty of games this year where we've come in at half-time behind and we've blown people away in the second half.
“This time we started really well and didn't finish the second half as well...these are the things, this is part of rugby and sometimes you've just got to roll your sleeves up and get stuck in and find a way to win.
"I think we probably just about deserved that one.”
Ulster are unbeaten at home and Murphy believes any team coming to Belfast in the knockout stages should be fearful.
“We're delighted to have that last 16 game here, especially when you look at the back end of the season and you look at the amount of fixtures that there will be,” he said. “Having home advantage in last 16 and if you can win that last eight will be a massive advantage for us, the fact that we won't have to travel.”