Richie Murphy draws positives from 'huge' Ulster return in Benetton success

“Five points is huge, four last week, nine points in the last two games is exactly what you need to do when the league is as tight as it is,” stated Murphy. “We just need to park that now, take out the bits that we need to get better and go into the Scarlets with real enthusiasm, get over there and try to attack it.

“There have been some good performances, but we haven’t quite finished anything.

“It feels like we are getting better but we didn’t quite finish it, I am very happy with the win and at times I felt we played some very good rugby.

"On the other side of that...we are a little bit Jekyll and Hyde, there is some really good stuff and then some ugly stuff that cost us badly.”

Murphy feels the attack is starting to take shape.

“There were some very good bits, Billy (Burns) is a talented out half and he is well able to bring people into the game, John (Cooney) was moving the ball quickly, which was nice to see,” he said. “Those two experienced half backs had a particularly good game.

“On the outside, Rob Baloucoune and Jacob (Stockdale) I thought had big games as well, chasing balls and winning defensive kicks as well, I thought they were great and I was really happy with all the guys.”

Murphy knows Ulster will need to tighten up defensively after conceding five tries.

“Some of the tries come from bad decisions in our attack,” he said. “Will’s offload has come back at the other end and cost us seven points when we are in a position of control in the game.

“That is a decision he has made and he doesn’t mean to make that mistake and it is something that we have had in our game the last couple of weeks.

“Those are the types of things that we need to tidy up but from a defensive point of view I think our attacking quality needs to be a hell of a lot better and we probably need to work a little bit harder to get set.”

ULSTER: M Lowry; R Baloucoune, W Addison, S McCloskey, J Stockdale; B Burns, J Cooney; E O’Sullivan, T Stewart, S Wilson; H Sheridan, A O’Connor (capt); D Ewers, R Crothers, D McCann.

Replacements: J Andrew for Stewart 74 minues, A Warwick for O’Sullivan 53 mins, J French for Wilson 64 mins, C Izuchukwu for O’Connor 64 mins, G Jones for Ewers 57 mins, D Shanahan for Cooney 76 mins, L Marshall for Addison 74 mins, E McIlroy for Stockdale 44 mins.

BENETTON: J Umaga; L Marin, T Menoncello, M Zanon, R Smith; T Albornoz, A Uren;

T Gallo, G Nicotera, S Ferrari; S Scrafton, E Iachizzi; A Izekor, M Lamaro (capt), L Cannone.

Replacements: G Lucchesi for Nicotera 46 mins, I Nemer for Gallo 52 mins, T Pasquali for Ferrari 52 mins, N Cannone for Scrafton 41 mins, R Favretto for Iachizzi 64 mins, T Halafihi for Lamaro 46 mins , A Garbisi for Uren 57 mins, F Drago Zanon 76 minutes.

Referee: S Grove-White.