Ulster's trip to bottom side Zebre is a 'must-win' for province's home advantage prospects says attack coach Mark Sexton

Ulster suffered a set back in their quest for a top-four finish last weekend as Connacht became the first team to beat them at home as the Ravenhill club lost ground on the top two.

Zebre have only won two of their 13 league games and have conceded over 400 points, while Ulster are the second top points-scorers in the league behind the Johannesburg Lions.

“It’s probably is a must-win, we've got a lot of home games towards the back end," said Sexton. “We've got Stormers, Glasgow and Leinster at home, we've got to travel to Munster and we've got to travel to Zebre, so at this time of the year, I think all games are must-wins, aren't they?

“We've got a knockout [game] in the Challenge Cup, so we want to win all our games.”

Sexton was disappointed with the reversal against Connacht but refused to hide behind injuries as an excuse.

“A lot [of things] were disappointing, I think probably the biggest thing was our accuracy. “We created a lot of opportunities that we didn't take, two really big opportunities, and I think that could have swung the game if we'd taken those chances, and then when we got into the score zone, we came away too many times without points and that was disappointing,” he added.

“You don't want to make excuses [about injuries]. I think the lads that came in, Jacob played out of position, I thought he did well, Carsey did well.

“It's about making sure that those lads when they play again in those positions are better and are ready for a knockout rugby.

“Obviously it would be brilliant to have McCloskey and James Hume, and Jude and even Stew Moore, but sometimes those things happen and we've got to make sure that our lads are better the next time we play.”

Sexton won’t be changing too much of the attacking structure for Zebre.

“It's all about making sure what you're doing, you're doing it properly and you're doing it properly all of the time, and until you can do what you're currently doing 100 percent, well then we won't be adding or taking away anything,” he said.

“I think our launch is – we change our launch every week depending on who we're playing and how we see the strengths of the opposition or the weaknesses – and then with our phase attack, it's a structure that is built, I suppose, that we can play anywhere at any time.

"You might make tweaks in terms of, if we're playing an opposition that gets tight, we might play a wider [game], you know, or a team that fill the pitch, we might look to play through them, they're the tweaks you might see.

“Our structure on Friday night wasn't good enough. Will we make changes to it? The changes will be at doing it better.”

Ulster’s midfield crisis has been eased with the return from Six Nations duty of Stuart McCloskey while James Hume has recovered from a concussion. Nick Timoney is also back from Ireland.

Lock Charlie Irvine (lower leg), prop Sam Crean (knee), out-half Jack Murphy (ribs) and prop Scott Wilson (shoulder) will have their fitness for selection assessed through training this week.

Sexton added: “When you've got McCloskey coming back as one of the in-form centres in the world, James Hume has been brilliant all year, it's pretty good for all of us.”