Dan McFarland: Ulster boss says 2018 hammering helped inspire win over Munster

Ulster celebrated a first Thomond Park win since 2014

A heavy away defeat by Munster back in 2018 helped inspire Ulster's derby win on Saturday night, head coach Dan McFarland says.

Ulster's 15-14 United Rugby Championship win at Thomond Park was their first success at the venue since 2014.

However, it was a 64-7 loss there in September 2018, early in McFarland's reign, that was on his mind post-match.

"It's huge isn't it. We haven't won down here since 2014," he said.

"Coming here, one of the things that was in the back of my mind was coming here in 2018. We [had] played The Cheetahs in South Africa and had a six-day turnaround, flew back and we lost by 60 points.

"It was a pretty seminal moment for us as a group. We had a young side out that week but we talked about it, how tough it was and we never wanted to repeat that."

Young hooker Tom Stewart scored Ulster's second try as he has produced another impressive display for the Irish province

Ulster looked like they were in control of the encounter at the interval as tries from Jordi Murphy, Tom Stewart and James Hume gave them a 15-3 half-time lead.

However, Munster produced a revival after the break and came within inches of grabbing victory when Jack Crowley struck a post with his conversion from Shane Daly's try.

"I thought Munster played well and I don't want that to sound in any other way than it is." McFarland continued.

"I thought their attack was potent, they snuffed out our attack. Fair enough, we got them at maul time but it was a good job we got them at maul time because if we hadn't have had that we wouldn't have won that game.

"Fair play to the lads for the effort they have put in over the last couple of weeks and to get a victory is really pleasing."

McFarland said he is happy with how hard his players have worked and how well they have performed recently, saying that they will now look forward to having a break.

"We have got to be pleased. We won in South Africa, only the third team to win in South Africa in the URC so far.

"We have now won in Munster which was a big hurdle for us. It is obviously soured by the fact that we lost at home to Leinster but, apart from that, we have got victories in our other five games.

"It has been nine weeks in a row for us now so we will go into the break, regather and look towards the next block."