Dan McFarland puts on brave face as Ulster thrashed by Sale Sharks

After blowing a 22-3 lead against Leinster’s 14 men at the RDS which saw Ulster drop to fourth in the United Rugby Championship last weekend, McFarland’s side started their European Champions Cup campaign at Sale and succumbed to a 39-0 reversal.

It was the first time since European competition started in 1995 that Ulster failed to register a single point in a match and makes Saturday night’s game against Ronan O’Gara’s reigning champions La Rochelle already a must-win.

The stats for the defeat at the AJ Stadium won’t make good reading when McFarland comes to do his video review with the squad.

Ulster conceded 16 penalties, were turned over 12 times, had only a 66 per cent success rate on their own scrum and missed 29 tackles. They didn’t fare much better in attack with one line break in the whole game.

Between the second half at the RDS and the whole game against the Sharks, Ulster have managed one converted try in their last three halves of rugby.

“There is always going to be criticism, I have got a job to focus on just as the guys have got a job to focus on,” McFarland said.

“In terms of credit in the bank this is a side that has done a lot over a chunk of time – 120 minutes of rugby, not playing great, we will be looking at that as much as anybody else and just refocusing on what we are good at.

“It doesn’t turn you into a bad team – 120 minutes of rugby – surely.

“We do what we always do: we settle down, focus on the details we need to look at in preparation for the team the following week, make any adjustments on the things we didn’t get right this week, talk through those and refocus,” he added.

“Most of our energy going into next week will be focusing on what we have got to do against La Rochelle. We are not going to fall into a swamp of self-pity – there is not enough time, a six-day turnaround when you are playing the European Champions.”

McFarland said Ulster were lacking confidence as his charges slumped to a heavy defeat in the Champions Cup opener.

“We are probably lacking a bit of confidence at the moment,” he said. “We saw that towards the end of the Leinster game and we definitely saw a bit of that today. Whether that was circumstance or not I don’t know, but confidence is a funny thing.

“It can only take a small thing to re-spark it or it can get knocked by a couple of things that don’t go your way.

“We have certainly got to find our mojo and get back to doing the things that we are good at, which we didn’t see today.”

Ulster had to travel on the day of the Sale game after their flight was cancelled on Saturday, but McFarland wasn’t making any excuses.

“It’s not ideal. We have done those things before but not at Champions Cup level. It’s not ideal preparation but you get on with it.

“It doesn’t explain that they were 30-odd points better than us.”