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Belfast Live
Belfast Live
Sport
Staff reporter

Dan McFarland takes aim at his own players after 'terrible' Ulster performance

Ben Healy was the hero for Munster when he scored a converted try in the final play of the game to snatch victory away from Ulster at Kingspan Stadium on Sunday night and leave home boss Dan McFarland fuming.

The Reds looked set to be heading for a seventh defeat in 11 URC games this season but Healy, who is attracting interest from Edinburgh and Scottish coach Gregor Townsend, rose to the occasion to keep Munster’s season alive with a 15-14 league win.

Three John Cooney kicks had Ulster 9-0 in front at the break but they had to sustain big Munster pressure again after the restart and wilted late on, much to the annoyance of McFarland who took aim at some of his own players.

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"I know it's not true, but that's what it looked like, in the real sense of the word, as if we didn't care," he said afterwards

"We were terrible. I think that's as poor as we've been in a long time," added McFarland who believes his team should have been well beaten long before the late drama.

Munster celebrate Ben Healy scoring a late try to beat Ulster at Kingspan Stadium in BKT URC (©INPHO/Ryan Byrne)

"It should never have come down to the last kick of the game there. I think there were 11 times we were in their 22 and lost the ball on 10 occasions. We scored a really good try on the one occasion when we hung on to the ball.

"How many times were they in our 22? Less than the fingers on one hand and we repelled them on one occasion and they scored on the other.

"They were magnificent at holding on to the ball. Fair play to them because they didn't get many opportunities.

"Maybe that is in training, we are not as focused in training at making sure the fundamental parts of the game are right.

"We deserved to lose because although we created a lot of pressure we weren't good enough to exploit that and they were good enough to exploit the small bits that they had."

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