Harnessing the vibrancy of youth key for Ulster

Ulster finally got back to winning ways with an away win against Connacht at the Dexcom Stadium on Saturday night.

The victory was probably more than a week overdue as Ulster should have converted their territory and possession against Munster to take care of proceedings at home. Winning on the road in Galway will revitalise this young side, before they turn their attention to a difficult task in the Champions Cup.

Fighting on both the domestic and Champions Cup fronts is expected of Ulster; they're a club that have traditionally held their own with high expectations in Europe.

However, after shipping two heavy defeats to French giants Toulouse and Bordeaux, Ulster will be focusing heavily on building on their league win, taking on Zebre at home before travelling to Benetton a few weeks after.

Facing the Italian sides during the international window will allow Richie Murphy to gather some much-needed points to scale the cluttered league table, before tougher challenges lie ahead.

Despite a run of five losses, Murphy is doing a great job in rebuilding his Ulster squad. Their numbers have been cut back and he’s using all of his insights and experience with players that he coached with the Ireland Under-20s to lay the foundations for the team going forward.

The five-game losing streak sounds terrible, but when you take the context into account, the two Champions Cup games were objectively always going to be tough, a loss to Leinster, and a game they should have won against Munster make up four of them. Had they gotten over the line against Munster, the frustration would have been a lot less.

Murphy hasn’t had an easy time with injuries to senior players like Rob Herring, Tom Stewart, Iain Henderson, Stuart McCloskey, Jacob