Ulster 10-15 Connacht: Ulster captain Alan O'Connor says they let departing players down

Captain Alan O'Connor said he feels Ulster let their 10 departing players down by losing their United Rugby Championship quarter-final to Connacht.

Dan McFarland's men produced a disjointed performance as they lost 15-10 at home to a side they finished five places above in the URC table.

Friday night's defeat came a day after Ulster announced that 10 of their current squad, including former World Cup winner Duane Vermeulen, would be leaving after this season.

"I didn't want to speak about the rugby because I thought I'd cry, but I did thank all the guys who were leaving," O'Connor said when asked what he said to his team-mates in the changing room after the game.

"All the guys who are retiring or moving clubs or who have World Cup aspirations, I just wished them all the best and thanked everybody. I didn't want to talk about the rugby."

He added: "Our whole season was for this game.

"We did well enough to get into second place to get ourselves a home quarter-final, and we knew what was at stake after we had won it [home venue for a semi-final].

"It is disappointing for everybody who put in the effort, but it is more disappointing for the guys who are moving on, and that is their last game of rugby [for Ulster] with their family out there.

"That would be a tough pill to swallow for me if I was them. I feel like we let them down, that is the way I feel. Obviously we all tried but we didn't win so I feel like we let them down in a way, which is disappointing because I don't want to be part of that.

"But it is just the way it is, it is sport. It was an honour to play with all of those guys, being captain of them was class.

"We left on a 'downer' note but we have had some good wins along the way, good experiences and made good memories."

An Ulster win would have been a 'robbery'

Dejected Ulster captain Alan O'Connor leads his side off the Kingspan pitch

Having finished the season 18 points above their inter-provincial rivals, Ulster head coach McFarland admitted his side were "warm favourites" for the last-eight tie against a team they had already beaten twice this season.

McFarland stressed how crucial the breakdown was to deciding the match and how Connacht, whose points came from five penalties from captain Jack Carty, dominated that area of the game.

O'Connor, whose converted try 16 minutes from time reduced the visitors' lead to 12-10 and gave the home crowd hope of a comeback, echoed his coach's thoughts on where the game got away from them in what was an error-strewn performance.

"Connacht came up and they did us on the breakdown," he continued.

"We gave away 18 penalties, I don't know how many they gave away but it definitely felt like less than half of that. You can't really do that in a game of rugby - how do you expect to win a game of rugby when you do that?

"If we had stolen that at the end it would have been a robbery, in my opinion, in terms of how we went about it and how we went about the discipline. They did a very good job on the breakdown."

Given a home semi-final would have awaited had they won, O'Connor was asked if he felt the season represented a backward step for a team that also lost in the last 16 of the Champions Cup to Leinster.

"It's not really a backward step. I think we have grown a fair bit as a team. We had 12 or 13 more points in the league than we did last year but obviously we didn't do as well in Europe.

"There were plenty of games that we should have done better in but I think overall we played some good stuff, we played some dominant rugby at times but if you want territory dominance it has to be disciplined and has to be really accurate in terms of ball focus and breakdowns.

"If you don't have those in those moments when you need them, then 18 penalties later you have lost a quarter final."

Judgement on season 'for another day' - McFarland

Ulster head coach McFarland admitted his side were "second best" against Connacht but insisted any judgement on their season as a whole would have to wait.

"I think that is for another day," he said when asked if he felt Ulster have progressed or regressed this campaign.

"I'd like to think that finishing second would speak to a level of progress but losing in a quarter-final when we lost in a semi-final last year would say something different.

"It is down to one-off games in the play-offs. They can be tight affairs. Myself and everyone in the organisation will have a look and see where we can improve for next year."

While loathe to cast judgement on the season as a whole, McFarland said Friday night's defeat was "pretty high" on his list of all-time personal disappointments.

He also said that winning a trophy has been the benchmark for the last couple of years for a club that last enjoyed silverware success in 2006.

"It [winning a trophy] is a benchmark," he said.

"The first couple of years from 2018 we were working really hard at bringing through and bedding in some of the younger players, and there was a big turnover of players.

"Since then we start every year with the objective of winning a trophy. That is the goal. It is a very difficult thing to do. We have been battling in play-off games but we haven't managed yet. That is pretty disappointing this year, I would put that up there."