Head coach Dan McFarland says Ulster were “hanging on for dear life” at the end of Friday’s dramatic 22-20 win away to Connacht.
Ulster held a 19-3 lead with 20 minutes to play but Connacht surged back into the game with two late tries.
Jack Carty missed a conversion with the final kick of the game as the hosts fell just short of a dramatic draw.
“I thought it was an up and down game and Connacht did extremely well to come back at the end,” said McFarland.
The victory ended a run of three straight defeats for Ulster in a difficult December for the province.
Ulster held a 22-3 lead over 14-man Leinster before their Irish rivals hit 35 points without reply to win, and that defeat was followed by a 39-0 hammering by Sale and La Rochelle’s win over McFarland’s men in Dublin – a game that was overshadowed by a pitch controversy.
A first win of the month looked on the cards when Rob Lyttle’s try and two scores from Man of the Match Tom Stewart put Ulster in control, but Caolin Blade gave Connacht hope before Jarrad Butler and Adam Byrne brought the hosts to within touching distance.
Carty had the chance to level the game with a difficult conversion in windy conditions but the fly-half’s kick drifted wide of the posts.
“It’s not just us, plenty of teams come to the Sportsground here and have nail-biting ends to the game,” added McFarland.
“To be honest, most of the time Connacht come out on the winning side of that. I’ve been watching Connacht and been involved with Connacht for a long time, and the guts and persistence they have within this side means you can never rest.
“At the end we were hanging on for dear life. It was only poor old Jack in terrible wind conditions that ended up missing the kick to get the draw.”
McFarland added he was pleased with Ulster’s maul, which resulted in hooker Stewart scoring two tries, and the kick-chase in the wind swept Sportsground.
Ulster are back in action on New Year’s Day against Irish rivals Munster, but McFarland said he wasn’t thinking about the derby in Belfast yet.
“We’ll take three days off over Christmas which is really unusual in professional rugby,” he said.
“We have nine days between games, which isn’t too bad, We have some battered bodies in there because that was a very physical game.
“I’m not even going to think about looking towards Munster, I’m going to go home and spend a bit of time with my family and enjoy Christmas.”
