{"id":839,"date":"2022-12-12T09:11:48","date_gmt":"2022-12-12T09:11:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/dan-mcfarland-ulster-coach-vows-side-will-avoid-self-pity-after-sale-nightmare\/"},"modified":"2022-12-12T09:11:48","modified_gmt":"2022-12-12T09:11:48","slug":"dan-mcfarland-ulster-coach-vows-side-will-avoid-self-pity-after-sale-nightmare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/dan-mcfarland-ulster-coach-vows-side-will-avoid-self-pity-after-sale-nightmare\/","title":{"rendered":"Dan McFarland: Ulster coach vows side will avoid ‘self pity’ after Sale nightmare"},"content":{"rendered":"


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<\/span><\/span>
It was a tough day for Ulster as Sale ran in six tries at the AJ Bell Stadium<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ulster coach Dan McFarland insisted his side will not fall into a “swamp of self pity” after the <\/span>chastening 39-0 Heineken Champions Cup defeat by Sale.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

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McFarland agreed the Irish province had been outplayed by Sale but said they had no option but to regroup for next Saturday’s home game with La Rochelle.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

“There’s not enough time [for self pity] in a six-day turnaround when you are playing the European champions next,” said the Ulster coach.<\/span><\/p>\n

“We’ve certainly got to find our mojo.”<\/span><\/p>\n

After squandering a 22-3 lead when losing in Dublin against Leinster nine days ago, Sunday’s defeat was an even more painful experience for McFarland’s side.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Ulster coach admitted that the European game had been “one of the least enjoyable” days of his four-year tenure.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Physically we struggled against them all over the park. I don’t think there were any areas of the game where we got a handle on them for any length of time. <\/span><\/p>\n

“They were excellent not only in the physicality but also in the execution of their play. It was really good and it put us under a lot of pressure in defence.”<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Ulster<\/span><\/span>
Ulster number eight Duane Vermeulen is halted by Sale pair Sam Sam James and Manu Tuilagi<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

McFarland’s under-pressure side conceded a succession of penalties which enabled Sale to completely dominate territory.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Obviously the amount of territory you give away to a team of their size, they are always going to punish you and they surely did,” added the Ulster coach.<\/span><\/p>\n

Both McFarland and centre Stuart McCloskey refused to use the squad’s weekend travel difficulties as an excuse for the display.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ulster’s planned flight to Manchester on Saturday was cancelled because of snow in the north of England which meant the squad had to fly on Sunday morning.<\/span><\/p>\n

“We’ve done those kind of things before – probably not at Champions Cup level,” added McFarland.<\/span><\/p>\n

“It’s not ideal preparation but you get on with it. It doesn’t explain why they were 30-odd points better than us.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Asked about criticism that is certain to follow Sunday’s thumping, McFarland said that “120 minutes of not playing great….doesn’t turn you into a bad team surely”.<\/span><\/p>\n

“This is a side that’s done a lot over a chunk of time,” he insisted.<\/span><\/p>\n

McCloskey made no attempt hide his disappointment after the defeat.<\/span><\/p>\n

“We were right off basically. It’s one of those ones that we’ll try and get over and forget about it and move on to next week,” said the Ireland player.<\/span><\/p>\n

“It’s a pretty short turnaround to La Rochelle. A pretty big game against the European champions and we’ll probably need to win that [to maintain hopes in the competition].”<\/span><\/p>\n

Toothless Ulster<\/h3>\n

McCloskey admitted that Ulster’s performance on Sunday was littered with woes. <\/span><\/p>\n

“I couldn’t even say we had really good chances. They disrupted our maul which is a pretty good go-to for us. <\/span><\/p>\n

“Some of the set plays were a wee fraction off and they kept the ball really well. <\/span><\/p>\n

“They got a lot of turnovers which ruined the breakdown and seemed to get a penalty every third phase so it was hard to put anything together.<\/span><\/p>\n

Asked about how Ulster will move on from failing to score a point at the AJ Bell Stadium, McCloskey was at a loss to come up with a response.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Good question. I don’t actually know. I couldn’t tell you. I’ve never really experienced a defeat like that. It’s going to be tough. La Rochelle are the European champions. <\/span><\/p>\n

“But Kingspan has always been good to us and hopefully we’ll pull out a good performance and get back on track.”<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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It was a tough day for Ulster as Sale ran in six tries at the AJ Bell Stadium Ulster coach Dan McFarland insisted his side will not fall into a “swamp of self pity” after the chastening 39-0 Heineken Champions Cup defeat by Sale. McFarland agreed the Irish province had been outplayed by Sale but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":840,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rugby"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=839"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":841,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839\/revisions\/841"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}