Ulster 'very lucky' in Cardiff win - boss Murphy

Ulster needed a late penalty to give Murphy his first URC win in charge

Ulster interim head coach Richie Murphy said his side were "very lucky" to beat Cardiff on Friday night.

The province edged the URC contest 19-17 thanks to John Cooney's 79th minute penalty.

Cardiff thought they had won the game with what would have been Theo Cabango's hat-trick try only for the officiating team to call play back for a knock-on from Rhys Carre.

With that infringement judged to be deliberate, Cooney was able to kick the game-winner with only seconds remaining.

"I fully believe we were very lucky to win the game," said Murphy.

The hosts were outscored two tries to one with Cardiff also believing there had been a knock-on in the build-up to David McCann's close-range score that came when Jacob Stockdale was in the sin-bin.

"It was a strange one," Murphy said of the game's dramatic final moments.

"I couldn't see a clear knock-on [from Cardiff].

"I thought the game had gone at that stage. We were probably a little bit lucky to get the win in the end.

"Looking back at the game as a whole, there are so many things that we need to do better to get into those situations at the end of a game."

'No pictures on the scorecard'

Ulster again struggled mightily at the breakdown throughout the game, a consistent problem area in recent weeks.

"The accuracy areas are the ones we need to be better at, in and around that contact area," Murphy said.

"Our line-out functioned better than it has in recent weeks but ultimately in and around the breakdown, both attack and defence, we weren't really good enough.

"[It's] four points, there's no pictures on the scorecard.

"At the end of the day, we've got the win and we're moving in the right direction in the league.

"Overall, I suppose we'll look at the game and see plenty of areas where we need drastic improvement over the next couple of days to get ready for Benetton."

Ulster did not lead for the first time until the 65th minute

Back home against Benetton next Friday having played four consecutive games on the road before this weekend, Murphy will at least have more time on the paddock to work on improvements than he has had during his five-match tenure so far.

"We obviously had a lot of rotation in our squad this week through injury and general tiredness out of the group," he said.

"With that, off a six-day turnaround it makes it difficult to get the continuity within the team.

"We're now back into a seven-day turnaround and have Monday, Tuesday together and we'll get more work done after two days off. We'll be ready for Benetton."

In a game they played without injured stars Iain Henderson, Steven Kitshoff, Rob Herring and Nick Timoney, Ulster centre James Hume was carried off in the first half.

"We'll have to wait for a scan," added Murphy.

"He seemed to think it wasn't as bad as it probably looked initially, but we'll have to wait to Monday."