'We didn't and we have to find out why' - Richie Murphy left with Ulster questions after URC early frustration

Ulster were heavy favourites on Friday against the Scottish side but found themselves 29 points down going into the final quarter.

Murphy’s men did stage a comeback with three converted tries in an eight-minute period and when Jack Murphy’s penalty went over on 72 minutes Ulster narrowed the deficit to five points.

And, with all the momentum, looked like snatching an improbable victory but – Edinburgh held on.

“Eight weeks’ pre-season is what you do and the work that's gone in pre-season wasn't reflected on the pitch tonight,” said Murphy. “There will be plenty of questions and rightfully so...we haven't delivered tonight and that's our issue.

“Massively disappointing, we’ve worked really hard in all of the areas of our game but we were comfortable in the first half letting Edinburgh hold on to the ball.

“I think we were working off as little as 35% possession and territory...Edinburgh held the ball really well and defensively we just stopped coming forward.

"And if you don't go forward and meet them, eventually they're going to break you down and the try before half-time, it digs a bigger hole for you.

“Half-time we talked about the things that we needed to deliver on the second half and our first 10 minutes was pretty poor again.

“In relation to our defence, we were very naïve...I think you did see an element of 15-20 minutes of the type of rugby that we've been trying to work towards through pre-season with some good accuracy and some good collision work.

“When you look at the game, there's a couple of handling errors on the back side but the hole has been dug at that stage, we're 29 points behind with 30 minutes on the clock.

“You have to find a way of trying to get yourself back into the game...it's both sides of the ball, missed tackles, poor connected line, a couple of turnovers but I think we did show some character in that 15-minute spell when we put together some sensational rugby.

“I thought the last 20 minutes you could see the stuff that we expected to see for the whole game but we didn't and we have to find out why.

“We definitely gave ourselves an opportunity to win it, we just weren't accurate enough.

“There's a couple of opportunities where we would have liked one or two of our players to make a final pass and try and get someone away.

"But when pressure comes on, I suppose you revert to the level of your training.

“Although we feel like we trained really well up to this point, there's obviously something that we can still do better.

“Scrum was excellent, we've done a lot of work in that area...that's probably one of the pieces that stood out, we were pretty happy with what we saw there.”