Leinster coach Leo Cullen accepts his side are not playing top drawer rugby but won’t be handing back any of the five league points gained at the Aviva.
Rieko Ioane, Josh Kenny, James Lowe and, finally, with full-time in sight, Dan Sheehan crossed for tries to secure the home side a 24-20 win.
Jack Conan picked up the Man of the Match award, Rieko Ioane was impressive, while Josh Kenny and Scott Penny caught the eye.
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But Leinster fans will look to the bench where the 44th minute introduction of Dan Sheehan, Paddy McCarthy, Tadhg Furlong and Joe McCarthy had a huge impact.
Ulster had spent almost the entire game holding a lead only for it to disappear in the closing stages, a point at which they had gone down to 14 men following a David McCann yellow card.
Richie Murphy’s side had gone close without ever fully convincing they were going to close it out, the coach pointing to a couple of second-half opportunities spurned as being costly.
Said Cullen: “I suppose we’re learning to win in a slightly different way, anyway, nine points down last week, 10 points down this week, which is great. It is not the way you ideally want to play every week. So listen, we’ve made a lot of changes, so some of that is forced again.
“Obviously we know we have to manage players at this stage of the season. So you’re seeing the guys in the stands, there’s that chopping change that we have to do. Then you’re trying to build cohesion. So we play Friday to Friday, listen, lads were off the weekend, travel back. So like, it’s limited in terms of prep.
“I’m not trying to make excuses here now, but it just, this is the way it plays out, and you make some changes and – to Jack’s point – guys are trying a little bit too hard at times, you know, rather than just being patient.
“We can wear some of these teams down. So we’re trying a little bit too hard. And then suddenly we’re getting ourselves in trouble because we’re forcing things that are not necessarily on, and then Ulster scored three tries in the first half. And that gets us into that situation where we’re 10 points down. “
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“I thought the bench guys came on did well. We had guys on the bench, we had some good experience there because we know Ulster are riding high at the moment, and we knew we would need impact potentially. Ideally, we would be 10 points up and we’re able to kick on with the bench, but that’s not the way it was.
“So I thought there was good composure within that. Even when James goes to, James Ryan goes to the bin, I’m watching that thinking I’m struggling to see a huge amount of illegality in that. I don’t know what you guys think.
It’s the composure within that part when we’re down to 14 men, which was really pleasing. Jack (Conan) , to be fair to him, listen, he’s hobbling around at that stage as well after taking a bang to his knee. So like he did a captain’s shift, which is great and the team needs to see that. That’s what it’s about. You know what I mean? So when the team needs him, he steps up to the plate.
“So listen, he should get a pat on the back because we needed guys to step up and guys did step up, which is pleasing. “
The game wasn’t all bad.
“So is it perfect? No. Are Ulster a good team? Yes, they are. Did they pose us problems in the first half? But a lot of it was our own doing as well. Can we better be better at building pressure and taking some simpler options? Yes, definitely in the first half. But when it came down to it, listen, I thought we came up with the solutions as the game wore on.
“You’re not going to get away with that week on week. So we need to be better, clearly. There’s a little bit of everything there at the moment, but we’re still a group that are trying to come together.
“We’re being forced to change the group as well. So listen, we just need to continue to work hard in training, put good plans together and keep searching for that, a better start to the game and listen, carry on and finish the game better.
“There’s a couple of games now we’ve got ourselves in trouble with some of our own looseness and Munster in Croke Park is probably the one, more than anything, that’s probably one of the games where we were probably most loose with the ball and we obviously saw the result that day against a very hungry, desperate team.
“So if we’re loose with the ball again next week against Munster, we know what’s going to happen to us because we’ve already seen it happen to us. It’s a great outcome from the game, but performance, listen, we need to get a hell of a lot better yet. but there’s reasons for it as well. I hope you know that.
“Are they excuses? Yeah, you could call them excuses or reasons. What’s the difference between a reason or versus an excuse? What’s the difference?”
Leinster now have four wins from seven URC games, two win from two Champions cup games.
“I’m sort of an optimistic person, believe it or not. I’m very realistic though at the same time and my realistic side to me knows that we need to get a lot better so we need to commit to working hard and training. So that’s the big thing, because you build habits day to day. And we’ve had a well documented excuses slash a reason.
“We’ve had a very clunky lead into this season with all these fellas literally arriving back and we’re starting the season. And like, how many coaching sessions were there with the group? Because literally we had three or four sessions. Then we’re gone for two weeks in South Africa.
“Then you’re into a Sharks game. So we haven’t had that much time together. It’s been a very unusual pre-season, but it’s in the past now and guys actually don’t have that much mileage on the clock as we’re heading into the middle of the season. And as we progress later in the season, I think we will get better. As in, that would be our plan, to get better, week on week.
“But we need to put in work as well. Don’t want just pretending it’s going to, or think it’s going to magically happen. We need to get back to work week on week. So when we turn up for work on Monday, it’s like getting excited about putting in a proper performance.
“What did we talk about halftime there? A little bit around ‘just listen, let’s get a bit more buzz about us’. It just felt like it was hard work for us out there. Whereas I just thought we needed more of a bit of a spark there, didn’t we?
“There was plenty of spark for guys coming off the benches, which is good, which you want to see. But those guys are in a bit more of a rhythm of playing so, yeah, a little bit of everything. But we can get better. Listen, there’s lots of positive intent and all the rest.
“But ideally, don’t get ourselves into as much trouble at the start of the game and how we manage certain scenarios. And then, yeah, bench, keep doing what they’re doing.
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