Ulster Rugby: ‘Confidence growing’ for in-form northern province says head coach Richie Murphy

Ulster head coach Richie Murphy says there is a “great buzz” around the northern province this season.

Friday night’s 28-3 interpro triumph over Munster lifted the side into second place in the United Rugby Championship and they have won six of eight games played in the league this season.

Having finished 14th last season, above only Zebre and Dragons in the table, it has been a dramatic turnaround at the Affidea Stadium so far in 2025-26.

“There’s a great buzz down in the changing room,” said the head coach in his second full season in the job.

“There’s confidence growing. There’s a real belief. There’s a real hunger. The atmosphere on a daily basis is great.

“The lads are turning up and they’re hungry for work.”

Murphy has been impressed by the contributions of 21-year-old pair Bryn Ward and Joe Hopes in recent weeks and feels it was important to increase the depth of his panel this season after a host of experienced departures in recent summers.

“There’s a few others that we want to try and get in over these next couple of weeks to try and build out our squad because that’s one of the things that is going to be really important come the back end of the tournament.

“The challenge in training is a lot better now because, one, we’ve a healthier squad than we did last year and those young guys are learning from the experience.

“Our older guys, the Iain Hendersons, the Rob Herrings, the Jacob Stockdales, Nick Timoneys, they’re really driving the place forward.

“The young lads are really hungry as well, so it’s great.”

In their latest victory, Ulster had led only 6-3 at half-time in snowy conditions but made their dominance count in the second half with three tries and 22 unanswered points to ensure they would leapfrog Munster in the table despite not picking up the four-try bonus point in the final minutes.

“Just early on in the game, we couldn’t quite break them down and we didn’t look after the ball quite well enough, but we put them under a hell of a lot of pressure and I suppose that told in the second half,” Murphy added.

“I still think we tried and we tried hard to play [in the first half].

“We were the team that were trying to move the ball to space and get our big ball carrying wingers into the game and I thought we’d done that really well, just probably a little bit disappointed that we couldn’t get that final try.”