Ulster approaching Scarlets game as 'must-win' - Murphy

Richie Murphy's side have won just four of their 11 URC games to date

Ulster head coach Richie Murphy says his team is approaching Saturday's United Rugby Championship meeting with the Scarlets at Kingspan Stadium as "a must-win game".

The Irish province go into the weekend's fixtures in a lowly 14th position in the URC league table, having won just four of their 11 league fixtures to date and on the back of successive defeats against Italian sides Zebre and Benetton.

With seven rounds of matches remaining in the regular season, Ulster are in danger of not securing a place in the top eight which would ensure a berth in the end-of-season play-offs and qualification for next season's Investec Champions Cup.

"We're in a very difficult position. Some of that is to do with confidence in the squad and it's my job to try and build that back up," Murphy told BBC Sport NI.

"This is a must-win game for us – that's how we are approaching it.

"With that in mind we have got to be careful that we don't just concentrate on the win. We've got to concentrate on the process and how we go about making the win - nailing our set-piece, being a bit more disciplined than we have.

"If we can get those little bits right that gets us on the front foot and we know when we get the ball on the front foot we can play rugby."

Missing out on Champions Cup 'wouldn't be a disaster'

Murphy added that a play-off spot is "still attainable and in our control" as they prepare to face a Scarlets side with former Ulster coaching staff Dwayne Peel and Jared Payne in their ranks.

"We would have been expected to be further up the table at this stage but we've had quite a lot of losses where it's been one or two points or we were right in the game," Murphy explained.

"We have to concentrate one game at a time at this stage of the year and that starts this weekend with Scarlets. It doesn't get much tougher.

"I don't think it would be a disaster [to fail to qualify for the Champions Cup] but it would be something we'd really want to chase. The club has always been in the top flight and at this stage we obviously wouldn't want that to change."

The Ulster head coach welcomes back players from Ireland and Ireland 'A' duty for this weekend's encounter as his side tries to arrest their poor league form.

"We've had a tough run. Some of that has to do with inconsistency in selection due to a lot of injuries but at the same time when we pick a team to go out and play we expect the performance to be at a certain level.

"In the first half in Benetton I actually thought we did pretty well but lost our way a little bit in the second half on the back of a little bit of indiscipline. With three yellow cards in the second half it's very difficult to win a game at that stage.

"Games before that, they weren't good enough, we weren't at a level we would expect."