It’s a results business and always will be, but how you get the results is important too and attack coach Dan Soper is hoping Ulster start combining the two, starting against the Ospreys on Friday night.
Ulster bounced back from a heavy defeat to the Bulls – the second of two losses in South Africa following a reverse against the Lions – with a bonus-point inter-pro win over Connacht at the Kingspan Stadium on Saturday.
That moved head coach Richie Murphy’s side up to eighth spot in the United Rugby Championship ahead of back-to-back matches against Welsh regions with a trip to Cardiff following the Ospreys game.
An inexperienced Ulster ended up getting run out of Loftus Versfeld 47-21 by a rampaging Blues side brimming with Springboks and although the 32-27 win over Connacht yielding five tries and five match points Soper says it was far from the sort of display Ulster want to produce.
“Despite the result of the Bulls, I actually thought a lot of the things that we did when we had the ball were very good and I thought we were going in a good direction but we were pretty disappointed with a lot of our attack on Saturday night,” said the New Zealander.
“We went away from some of the principles that we’ve been working hard on and because we did that we gave Connacht the opportunity to come and get us and they did a good job of shutting our attack down.
“We’re still searching for that consistency of attack but from where we were in preseason, I think we’re making good progress.
“But, as I say, we were a wee bit disappointed with some of the things we did on Saturday night, albeit it was a wet night, but that was probably even more reason for us to lean on the principles and the fundamentals of what we build our attack on and we went away from that a wee bit.”
Soper says those principles don’t mean throwing the ball around for the sake of it. Of Ulster’s five tries four came either directly or in the immediate aftermath of driving mauls, a strength of the province’s game in recent seasons. Soper sees no reason why that should change.
“Of course we want to play with the ball, we want to see guys like Mikey [Lowry] and Jacob [Stockdale] and those sort of guys in wide spaces with the ball,” he said.
“But, do you know what, the game is still fundamentally about going forward and when you can tie up a lot of numbers in the opposition in one area of the pitch through a scrum or a maul and have a bit of dominance there, it makes the job a bit easier for the guys because they have a wee bit more space in the width.
“The maul is a really important part of the game. Teams that have an effective maul generally do pretty well. So, it was great to see the work the guys have been putting in, a bit of progress on Saturday night. [Forwards coach] Jimmy [Duffy] is working hard with the boys, we’ll keep progressing there.”
Captain Iain Henderson will miss the Ospreys clash after sustaining a concussion against Connacht but there is better news about fellow Irish international Stuart McCloskey, who has resumed team training following knee and ankle injuries picked up in South Africa and could feature.
His return to the centre would be timely for Ulster with Stuart Moore ruled out with a sterno-clavicular joint injury picked up against Connacht and Jude Postlethwaite a doubt after injuring his shoulder against the westerners. An ankle knock in the same game has Ulster sweating on the fitness of full-back Ethan McIlroy.
