Derby defeats leave Ulster and Leicester desperate to make amends in semi-final

Dan McFarland's Ulster travel to face Leicester in the Challenge Cup semi-final on Friday night. Photo: Matt Impey/Sportsfile

Jonathan Bradley

April 26 2021 02:30 AM

Two home teams, two derby day defeats, and now two sides desperately looking to make amends in this weekend’s Challenge Cup semi-final.

Both Ulster and Leicester swallowed bitter pills over the weekend, and while the Tigers’ loss at Welford Road to Northampton Saints on Saturday wasn’t quite the product of a performance as poor as the northern province’s to Connacht in Belfast one night prior, given the Premiership stakes and the greater intensity to the rivalry, it was no less a gut-punch for Steve Borthwick’s side.

Coupled too with their reverse to Bath in their previous league outing, this second-tier European competition takes on a greater priority too for this historic old club than perhaps it had for Ulster’s play-off chasing English opposition beaten in past rounds.

Despite recent set-backs, this is a Tigers side built in the image of Leicester’s most successful iterations, the likes of Ellis Genge, Tom Youngs, Dan Cole, Jasper Wiese and fit-again Nemani Nadolo leaving little doubt as to the source of their strength.

When travelling to Welford Road on Friday night, Ulster will be in no doubt the area of their game that requires the greatest deal of improvement from last weekend.

“We definitely have to look at ourselves and say well, we have got to be more physical,” said a frustrated Dan McFarland in the moments after watching his side contrive to lose to Connacht from a winning position and the ball in the opposition ‘22’ with barely more than a minute left.

“Leicester are going to be a lot more physical than Connacht were. Their set-piece is going to be a lot better than Connacht’s. We weren’t disappointed in (the physical effort against) Northampton; we weren’t winning the collisions there but I was not disappointed necessarily because they were ferocious in their carries – and it was something we had to change.

“I would say that it looked like we were a little bit soft on the line this week. There were a few guys who were soaking tackles and soaking inches. We are about winning those inches and there were a couple of guys in there who soaked inches and it cost us a bit of gain-line.

“Certainly their first try was way too easy and that is something we would be disappointed with. We won’t have a problem fixing that. We have got to improve a lot. We will go and have a look at selection and there will be a few guys who will come into the side and there may be a couple of changes. We will see how we go.

With their coach sounding as vexed as he has in any post-match of his now three-year tenure, there was no sugar-coating from his players either.

“What Dan is saying is spot on,” said hooker Rob Herring, who was among a group of key players including Iain Henderson, Jacob Stockdale and John Cooney removed early with this weekend’s game in mind.

“What Connacht did to us here is what we did to them in Galway over Christmas. They were very good physically, they used their momentum well. Going to Leicester, that’s one of the most physical places you can go.

“Leicester as a pack are going extremely well, they’re very physical. We’ve got to be better in our line-out in attack, we gave away too many balls there and couldn’t get into the game. In general as a pack we’ve got to step it up.

“It’s something we’ll look at it but all we can do is get back to doing what we do well and that’s hopefully what we’re going to put on the pitch next week. We’ll take it for what it is, we weren’t at the standard that we expect of ourselves but that’s it. You live and you learn, we’ve got to move on quickly now and bring that positive energy because this next week is a big step for us as a club.”

Herring will understand that more than most. Nobody in the current squad has pulled on the white jersey more, the man who turns 31 tomorrow having been a part of plenty of near misses through his nine-year stint at Kingspan Stadium.

“As a club, where we want to go, we need to be winning these semi-finals. It’s a step forward from previous years in Europe so it’s a big occasion. It’s a young squad that we have so it’s a massive chance to take the next step – always competing for championships and I think it’s massively exciting to be in this position, to be going into a semi-final.

“We’ve done it the hard way now, away from home, and it’s another big challenge but we’re massively looking forward to it.”