Ulster boss Dan McFarland lamented his side’s second half display as they lost 33-20 against Glasgow Warriors in the United Rugby Championship.

McFarland was disappointed that Ulster failed to build on a promising first-half performance.

“A lot of what we did in the first half was excellent,” he said.

“Particularly around our defence, but for some reason we fell on the wrong side of the referee and we couldn’t work it out.”

McFarland continued: “We put ourselves under a lot of pressure after we scored those two tries, we didn’t finish sets.

“In the second half we didn’t get a grip of the physicality of the game and when we had our chances, we didn’t finish sets.”

The defeat in Scotstoun was Ulster’s second of the season in the URC and it leaves them fourth in the table.

McFarland also conceded that the loss of Jake Flannery in the warm-up and then replacement Billy Burns to a head injury assessment early in the game, hindered his injury-hit side further, with Nathan Doak filling in at fly-half.

“You lose two 10s in the first 10 minutes of the game and it is obviously going to make it very difficult,” he admitted.

“Nathan didn’t practice at 10 all week so it is definitely disruptive, but I thought we put ourselves in a good position in that game.”

McFarland added: “The amount of penalties we seemed to give away at the breakdown, that swung the momentum. They got their mojo going and they’re a good team.

“From our attack side of things we have to be able to hold onto the ball and be able to finish sets better, that was a big thing.”