Richie Murphy admitted to finding Ulster’s latest loss “tough to take” after a second half power surge saw Bordeaux stretch away to put 40 points on his side, a mere six days after Toulouse racked up 61.
Two heavy defeats in the Champions Cup have now come on the back of the same number of losses in the United Rugby Championship, meaning that Ulster must pull out all the stops to halt this trend when Munster visit Ravenhill on Friday evening.
“Definitely frustrated,” admitted Murphy after his side had conceded six tries to their visitors, three fewer than was the case at Toulouse.
“I thought we put some good stuff together in the first half and put a very good team under pressure.
“A couple of breakdowns we missed, and they take the ball off you particularly in those outside channels.
“That was disappointing, the territory and possession we had in the first half probably didn’t make a good enough impression with what we had, the second half their bench came on and the physicality of the game just goes up and we just couldn’t survive it.”
At one point Bordeaux had 13 players on the field having shipped two first half yellow cards in quick succession and Ulster – who had David McCann also yellow carded – managed just one converted try in this period which gave the visitors the oxygen they needed to pull clear when utilising their powerful bench.
“Defensively (in the second half) they started making yards on us and a couple of decisions went against us, which made it very difficult,” admitted the Ulster head coach.
“It’s tough to take but we’re playing in the top competition in Europe and we’re playing against two of probably the top four or five teams in Europe off the back of playing another one (Leinster in the URC), so three of the top five teams over the last three weeks is difficult.
“We feel like we’re getting better, the first half shows that. But in order to be able play against these types of teams you have to last 80 minutes and at the moment we’re not quite able to do that.
“Everyone has held their hands up and come in with an attitude to try and turn what was last week (against Toulouse) into a really good performance this week and against teams like Bordeaux you have to be on it for 80 minutes.”
Looking ahead, Murphy said: “Six days to Munster, to play those three teams and to have six-day turnarounds it’s a brutal schedule, we’ll dust ourselves off and go again.
“In order for us beat these types of teams we have to play to the right space all the time. You get it wrong you run into massive bodies and they slow you down and it becomes very difficult to regenerate quick ball.
“Back end of the game we disintegrated quite a lot and we’re pretty disappointed with that last 15 to 20 minutes, but ultimately it’s not a lack of effort or commitment.
“We feel we are moving in the right direction but against teams like this we’re probably not quite there yet.”