Champions Cup: Ulster must sort breakdown errors in Bath European opener - Grant

Edinburgh back row Jamie Ritchie's breakdown work earned him the man of the match award in Saturday's win over Ulster at Kingspan Stadium

Ulster forwards coach Roddy Grant says the side must remedy breakdown errors in Saturday's Investec Champions Cup opener against Bath as they aim to avoid a third successive defeat.

Edinburgh's Jamie Ritchie proved a menace at the breakdown as Ulster suffered a 27-24 home loss on Saturday.

Sam Underhill's likely presence for Bath will not make the breakdown battle any easier at the Recreation Ground.

"We were off in that area," Grant told an Ulster media briefing on Monday.

"There's a lot that goes into the breakdown whether it's tactics, technique or individual responsibility.

"Jamie Ritchie did well and that was a big area of focus today in the [post-match] review.

"A lot of it was individual errors whether it was ball-carriers getting sloppy with ball placement, support guys/cleaners being slightly slow in or off our feet and Jamie Ritchie would come over the top.

"Underhill attacks the breakdown hard so it's something we've got to focus on."

McFarland lamented poor training session

Following Saturday's home defeat when Ulster needed to score two late tries to snatch a losing bonus point, coach Dan McFarland saying that a poor training session last Tuesday had contributed to the loss, and called for an improvement.

"We trained very well on Thursday but we didn't train well on Tuesday. A lot of that is down to the cohesion aspect and a lot of chop and change - but we need to be consistently more accurate while training," McFarland said in his post-match comments.

Forwards coach Grant said that experienced lock Alan O'Connor had addressed the issue following Saturday's defeat.

"Alan O'Connor spoke really well, I felt, in the changing room afterwards. It was a very mature, very honest assessment," he said.

"It's something we'll be focusing on this week. When you get errors in games, a lot of it can be helped by how you train.

"If you train better generally the output at the weekend as a whole is better.

"There were a lot of errors on Saturday so it's a big focus for everyone, coaches, players, leaders really driving that this week, having a really good week of intense, accurate training."

Finn Russell helped Bath move up to second place in the English Premiership as they impressively defeated Exeter 41-24 on Saturday

Bath will go into this weekend's game on the back of an impressive 41-24 win over Exeter which moved them up to second place in the Premiership table.

Grant admits "Bath are going good", but believes Ulster can regroup from their recent setbacks to compete well.

"Bath have really good players so it's easy enough for us in terms of motivation, getting up for it," added the forwards coach.

Bath's stars include Scotland fly-half Finn Russell, who Grant describes as "one of the best 10s in the world".

He added: "It's a very difficult position to play and to be one of the best says a lot. He can do some really incredible things."