Ulster only looking up insists McFarland following victory over Cardiff

BKT United Rugby Championship: Cardiff Blues 20 Ulster 42

With just three games remaining, all of which are on home soil, Ulster head coach Dan McFarland insists his side won’t be looking over their shoulder as they aim to reel in the Stormers and claim second spot in the URC table.

“Like our target is the Stormers – we want to finish second.

“I think they are five points ahead of us. I know that’s not in our control but if we are aiming to try and get to second in the league, we know we are going to have to win out and that’s really tough.

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“But that’s the objective and we have to try to improve week on week and we’ll take a little bit of a break and we’ll get our heads down and focus on the Bulls.

“I know they lost today and they’ll be coming fully equipped to Ravenhill Kingspan and that will be a tough challenge for us.”

McFarland was speaking after seeing his side romp to a convincing 42-20 away win over Cardiff on Saturday night.

Scoring three tries in each half, Ulster coasted to victory that keeps them in third place as both Glasgow and Munster continue to breathe down their necks.

With their rivals all achieving bonus-point wins over the weekend, Ulster went into the final game of the weekend knowing exactly what to do and McFarland was delighted to see his side come away from Wales with the full quota of five-points.

“I thought the lads played well. Obviously, we are in a battle at the top of the league. It was a weekend where the guys around us in the league had home games and were putting up bonus point wins, so it was important that we got a result out there.”

Ulster raced into an early lead when James Hume went for the opening try after only two minutes, but Cardiff fought back to forge a one-point lead, 8-7, by the 16th minute.

But a dominant second quarter from the visitors saw McFarland’s men take a 21-8 lead into the sheds at half-time thanks to scores from Jacob Stockdale and player of the match, Nathan Doak.

But it was Stockdale’s effort just short of the 20-minute mark that got tongues wagging.

The winger reminded everyone that class is indeed permanent with a fabulous individual try that was reminiscent of his effort for Ireland against New Zealand in 2018. Collecting the ball out wide, Stockdale chipped over the Cardiff backline before gathering again and finishing spectacularly in the corner.

“I think he demonstrated there in attack what he is capable of didn’t he,” said McFarland about the Irish international.

“Some of his running was really good. There was a good high ball take. And his try, well, there are not many players can do that. He’s such a dangerous threat in attack. It was really good to see him on fire there. I thought he did a good job and it was nice to see him running with the ball and beating defenders.”

Billy Burns added try number four before Tom Stewart claimed two more tries to take his season tally into double figures to cap off a rare comfortable victory on the road.

After a demanding last three weeks, the nature of this contest allowed McFarland to run his bench earlier than he may have anticipated. But one player who didn’t feature was John Cooney. McFarland revealed that this was nothing more than a precautionary measure.

“Yeah John, he had a slightly tight groin in the warm up.

“It wasn’t such that we thought that he couldn’t play but given the nature of the game we didn’t need to bring him on so we didn’t.”