Rob Herring searching for positives after another costly defeat for Ulster

The 31-29 defeat by Benetton in Treviso once again saw Ulster – who started the game with 13 internationals and had a British Lion plus a world cup winner on the bench – blow another late lead and slip to fourth in the table, 18 points behind leaders Leinster albeit with a game in hand.

Ulster are back in Europe this week and the picture isn’t any better for Dan McFarland’s team in the Champions Cup as they sit 10th in Pool B with a real fight on their hands to reach the last 16.

Ulster had managed to overturn a 15-point deficit in Treviso to lead with six minutes on the clock after a late Rhyno Smith penalty won it for the Italians.

“We are pretty gutted, we are just on a run of bad losses or bad form at the moment,” Herring said.

“Sometimes these games – the same as Munster – if the game finished five minutes earlier we are coming in on Monday a bit happier, but sometimes things just don’t go your way.

“Credit to Benetton they played really well, they forced some errors into us and uncharacterised errors as well, and they capitalised on them.

“You have to say fair play to Benetton and you can’t take away anything from their performance, and these are tough loses for us,” he added.

“It was a good battle to the end and we could have snuck it at the end. I think [there are] some positives even though we are not playing our best rugby at the moment. We are still in games, we were 13 points down and they had all the momentum and we were able to flip the switch get back into the game and go ahead with five minutes left.

“We can always look at that as a positive. There are things in our control that we aren’t getting right and I think if we start nailing those moments, then it starts to look a bit different.”

With one win in six games, the last place Ulster will want to go is to the home of the defending European champions.

La Rochelle top Pool B in the Champions Cup with two wins and are third in their domestic league, closing the gap on Toulouse after they beat the leaders 30-7 on Saturday night.

The French side won 36-29 when the sides met in Dublin before Christmas.

“We have to flip the switch, if you look at the last La Rochelle game, we let them get ahead in the first half and in the second half we won the scoreboard, so we have to take that and build up it,” Herring said.

“There have been things in the last two games that have been in our control which we haven’t handled well, so if we can just get those moments right, we are still a good side, we play brilliant rugby and we have a lot of heart, and we’ll look to draw on that next week.”