Dan McFarland was a satisfied man after watching his side claim a second Champions Cup victory over the Northampton Saints at Kingspan Stadium.

While the Northern Province had to wait for the crucial fourth down – arriving on the hour mark from Craig Gilroy about 40 minutes after Ethan McIlroy provided his third – the five-point loot from the 27-22 victory leaves l ‘Ulster with a record nine out of ten possible points after two rounds of European action.

After a blazing start that also saw Rob Herring pass after just three minutes and a penalty try awarded when Alex Mitchell slapped a John Cooney pass, the hosts had frustrating moments on offense afterwards, a fate McFarland said. attributed to unusual errors. .

“We put three tries on the board, a nice counterattack, a good phase play, and every time we scored and they kicked our half, we weren’t precise with our exit and that was theirs. gave the opportunity to gain a foothold and score points, and that’s what they did, “said the coach.

“I actually think a lot of their points came within three, four minutes after we scored. It’s very unusual for us. In the last three or four games we’ve been great for it. coming out of our half, very precise. But we did some weird things today: little dumps, losing the ball on contact, trying to get the ball out of the mauls and giving up possession. That was a big reason for it. which we weren’t able to maintain control over the game. “

In truth though, his team still felt in the driver’s seat with 10 of Northampton’s points on the night after Ulster finished scoring.

With Nick Timoney taking home the man of the match honors, McFarland added that the events at the blackout made for a good game.

“The battle from the back row was very interesting,” he said. “In that third quarter, they started to gain a lot of collisions. We started to get very skillful with our tackles, which, again, is very unusual for us – trying to wrestle with them, putting hand on the ball.

“Against guys like Courtney Lawes and Lewis Ludlam, who I found excellent in terms of the aggressive nature he carried the ball with, you can’t do that or you’ll end up on the back foot.

“They managed to slow down our outage a bit, and I would say there was some illegality about it and on another occasion we were getting penalties for the guys standing in the way and coming to the side. But, nevertheless, they were very physical.

“In the third quarter we fixed that, certainly on the defensive end, and put in some nice passages of play.

“Unlike their back row, our back row got steals at crucial times, which they did. Duane is a legend for producing a steal when you need it, and Nick and Marcus (Rea) I’ve done it well in the last few games. I thought it was an interesting battle. “

As Iain Henderson limped out of the second half on his return to action from a hamstring injury, Dan McFarland believed his skipper had been forced to retire due to a ankle problem.