\n<\/p>\n
Ulster head coach Richie Murphy has praised the “grit” shown by his side in grinding out a <\/b>28-24 win<\/b> over Ospreys in Saturday’s European Challenge Cup last-16 tie at a windswept Affidea Stadium in Belfast.<\/b><\/p>\n
Cormac Izuchukwu, David McCann, Jacob Stockdale and Nick Timoney all scored tries as the Irish province defied the difficult conditions to book a quarter-final against French side La Rochelle in Belfast on Friday.<\/p>\n
The Welsh side led 17-14 at half-time but with the wind in their favour after the break, Murphy’s team battled back to claim victory.<\/p>\n
The hosts survived a scare in the dying minutes when Kieran Hardy’s potential match-winning try was ruled out because of a forward pass in the build-up after consultation with the Television Match Official [TMO].<\/p>\n
“A little bit of relief definitely. It never was going to be easy and the conditions obviously made it very difficult,” said Murphy after the game.<\/p>\n
“We created quite a few opportunities in the first half but didn’t quite pick the right pass.<\/p>\n
“That put us under a little bit of pressure and we conceded a couple of early scores to them and defensively we were just a little bit off but we are in the last eight, we’ve got work to do and we’ve got a week’s prep now to lead into La Rochelle which will be really exciting.”<\/p>\n
The Ulster head coach added that some handling errors were inevitable given the weather conditions, which he described as the worst he had witnessed for a game during his tenure.<\/p>\n
“We showed a nice bit of grit, we stuck at it and we got over the line.<\/p>\n
“Created the opportunities, didn’t take them, so next week we’ve got to work on our skills in training and make sure we take them next time,” he reflected.<\/p>\n
Murphy says the prospect of taking on Ronan O’Gara’s team next week is an exciting one.<\/p>\n
“It’s a massive game for us, it’s at home. I know they have had a tough enough season but they’re one of the top teams in Europe and when they come to town it’s really exciting.<\/p>\n
“We’ll brush ourselves down, we’ll review really hard on Monday and get back to work and make sure we turn up a little bit more polished, a little bit more tidy in and around our decision making. <\/p>\n
“If we can do that we can cause any team a threat so we’re excited about what’s ahead.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Ulster head coach Richie Murphy has praised the “grit” shown by his side in grinding out a 28-24 win over Ospreys in Saturday’s European Challenge Cup last-16 tie at a windswept Affidea Stadium in Belfast. Cormac Izuchukwu, David McCann, Jacob Stockdale and Nick Timoney all scored tries as the Irish province defied the difficult conditions<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12217,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rugby"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12216\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}