Nick Timoney has witnessed some dark days in an Ulster shirt but few will come close as to the disappointment of last Sunday night’s one-point defeat to minnows Zebre Parma.
With home advantage and up against opposition decimated by Six Nations call-ups, very few observers forecasted anything other than an Ulster bonus-point win.
But the Italians decided to ignore the pre-match script and thought their way to a stunning 15-14 victory while at the same time ending a winless away run which dated back to 2020.
The result left clouds hanging over Ravenhill darker than the ones that came with the weekend’s storms.
“Pretty upset obviously,” was Timoney’s initial reaction to surprising result.
“It was a big game that we needed to win. We were probably expected to win particularly from the outside and we would’ve expected ourselves to put in a much better performance that what we did. So, we’re very disappointed.”
Last week’s 52-24 win over Exeter may have given the impression of a dominant Ulster performance. But Timoney believes that the win over the Chiefs second string may have given a false impression of Ulster’s true standing.
Leading to a covering up of cracks and hiding some of Ulster’s failings that were exposed by the Italians.
“I think you know, there were times last week when we were pretty poor as well and ultimately, we ran away with it at the end and the scoreline maybe masked some of the things a little bit.
“Maybe we’re not analysing ourselves hard but some of the things we got away with last week by scoring tries in the second half we didn’t get away with today.
“Loads of stuff like holding onto the ball, set piece stuff, there’s managing the game, there’s that kind of thing that we need to get a lot better at and that’s the story as well.”
If the message for improvement wasn’t getting through to the players beforehand, it will certainly will be after Sunday’s performance.
As skipper for the night, Timoney left the squad with plenty to think about as they face a week off before returning next week.
“There’s loads of things that we need to be much better at.
“We are still a long way away from getting our attack shape right the way it needs to be, getting our breakdown right, getting our ball retention, our set-piece still has a long way to go.
“Our approach to games too.
“Like there’s loads of stuff that we weren’t good enough at before today. Today we showed we weren’t good enough at them but we are going to keep working hard and try to get better at them.
“Like, if there’s one thing I’ve learnt from rugby is there’s loads of times where you feel that you are as low as you can possibly get and you can accept it or you can fight and try to get your way back up and that’s what we are going to try and do.”
