Ulster head coach Dan McFarland praised his side’s “gutsy performance” as they withheld a Leinster onslaught to win 22-21 in the URC game at the RDS.
Nick Timoney and Jacob Stockdale tries helped the visitors build an early lead but Leinster fought back to level.
Timoney crossed again to make it 19-14 at the break and Ulster survived relentless second-half pressure to win.
“The lads ‘gutsed’ it out and put in some fantastic collisions in defence, held their discipline,” said McFarland.
“We came out on the right side and we’ve won three big games in a row now, three very difficult games.”
Ulster’s season appeared to be in danger of unravelling as successive URC defeats by Glasgow and Edinburgh, followed by a Champions Cup reverse at the hands of Bath, put them on the back foot.
McFarland’s side have bounced back in style however with home victories over Racing 92 and Connacht, then a famous New Year’s Day success over table-toppers Leinster in wet and windy conditions in Dublin to take them into the top four in the league standings.
‘It was pretty intense’
“Both sides went at it really hard, it was really tough physically in the first half at the breakdown,” reflected McFarland of the Leinster contest.
“It was pretty intense, but I thought we did an excellent job in the collisions. It was always going to be a bit of a dogfight in those conditions but we ended up scoring three fantastic tries and a couple of really inventive pieces of play from the backs which was terrific.
“There are some teams that are susceptible to the attacking kicking game and I think Leinster are. That came off. It’s worked hard on in practice and we executed it excellently.
“We struggled to exit. Leinster have become a very physical side at the breakdown and that weather suits them perfectly.
“We didn’t deal with it at all in the first half when we had the wind behind our backs. In the second half I thought we dealt with it much better.”
Ulster’s next games are crucial European back-to-back encounters against Toulouse and Harlequins later in January, with the URC now put in cold storage until mid-February, after the first two rounds of Six Nations fixtures.
“We’ve got Toulouse and then Harlequins. Toulouse are monsters of Europe, we’ve played them a few times and we’ve won and lost against them. We’ll look forward to that challenge,” added McFarland.
Ulster ‘full of confidence’ – Burns
Fly-half Burns was awarded the man-of-the-match prize for his influence on Monday’s game, but he was quick to credit assistant coach Dan Soper and the remainder of the coaching staff for devising the strategy to see off their Irish interprovincial rivals.
“We put a lot of energy and effort into this game. We’re off the back of a tough run but we’ve had a couple of wins and we are full of confidence,” Burns commented after the match.
“We know how tough a job it is down here. Huge credit to Dan Soper and the coaching staff coming up with a plan that all the boys stuck to. The wind probably helped that as well. To come away with a win means a huge amount.
“Putting the ball in behind was key with their fast line speed, and it worked well.
“We’re still building, changing the way we play, at the start of the season some of the execution was pretty poor, it’s game by game, keep showing improvement week on week and we’ll see where that takes us.
“We have some big games coming up which will tell us a lot about where we are and where we can go going forward.”
‘A stepping stone on the journey’
Ulster captain Iain Henderson confirmed that part of the plan to overcome Leinster was “playing to Billy’s strengths”.
“We were looking to put the ball in behind them and the way conditions were that set our plan up perfectly at times.
“Other times maybe the conditions got to both sides and it became more of a dogfight. I thought we executed the plan we came into the game with well and it paid off.
“We felt we lost that battle up front in the first half, thought we got bullied a bit, the second half was maybe neck and neck, but we got the job done when we needed to and are happy to come away with the points.
“This result doesn’t mean we are the finished article to where we want to be, this is just another stepping stone on the journey that we’re on and where we want to get to.”
