Ulster's Dan McFarland trusting in the process to ‘get back there’

Two years ago, in the Champions Cup, Ulster led Gloucester with 85 minutes on the clock but George Barton went over for a try to win it for the Cherry and Whites.

Last season, at Kingspan Stadium, Ulster were in front against then-European champions Toulouse but, with five minutes left, Antoine Dupont darted over for a try with Thomas Ramos adding the conversion to seal the one-point aggregate victory for the French team.

It was the same story in the URC semi-final in Cape Town last season as Ulster led the Stormers by five points with the clock deep in the red when winger Warrick Gelant went over for a try to tie the scores and Manie Libbok kicked the South Africans’ winning conversion.

Ulster coach McFarland admitted you can prepare for those match-defining moments on the training paddock but it’s about how the players react when the intensity is turned up.

“You can replicate the situation, but you can’t replicate the pressure,” he said. “You can play out things and work out the kinds of things you’d like to do in those situations and you can perform them in competitive situations...but we can’t replicate the pressure of a last five minutes against Toulouse.

“The key thing is understanding the rugby, so the guys are really good at what they’re doing and you hope that in the moment, when the pressure is on, we’re able to do the business there.

“Evidently, we’re not there yet but we’re working at it.

“The way I don’t get too high or low is you talk about the Stormers game last year...it was a semi-final when we had to travel on the Wednesday because we didn’t know where we’re going and lost in the 85th minute to the eventual champions away from home after having travelled down there.

“The Stormers are a really good side and we were literally that close to having a home final.

“I know that we have the ingredients for top quality and potentially Championship-winning.

"Are we favourites or likely? No.

"But I do know we have the potential to play at that level, at the moment we’ve just slipped off a bit for a number of reasons...we’ll get back there.”

After a run of four defeats in five, which has Ulster’s hopes of knockout Champions Cup hanging by a thread, the gap between URC leaders Leinster is 16 points.

“There’s a history or back catalogue that tells me, we’ve had ups and downs in the past over the last four years," said McFarland. “If you believe in what you’re doing and you believe in what you’ve got then you weather through those in the knowledge that in the same way a pro golfer suddenly finds he’s hitting a slice he focuses on his process and he carries on and eventually it will come back to him because he focuses on the details and improves every day.

“You can’t be too high when things are going well and you can’t get too low when things aren’t going as well.”