Richie Murphy provides update on Ulster future after vital win over Scarlets

Ulster interim boss Richie Murphy says talks over him extending his stay at Kingspan Stadium "are going well". Murphy provided the update following the province's vital bonus point win over the Scarlets on Saturday.

Ulster needed to make it a five-point round to boost their URC play-off and Champions Cup hopes. And after a slow start at Parc y Scarlets they clicked into gear in the second half running in four tries to bag their first away win since New Year's Day.

It was another good showing by Ulster in the end which led to Murphy being quizzed about his future with the province by Premier Sports pundits. "Things are moving along. Discussions are going well, we'll see how they go," he said when asked the question. The focus was always to get them to the end of the year and see where we go from there."

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The Scarlet' discipline cost them as the first half wore on as they had two players sin-binned, and they were fortunate to go into the break with a three-point lead as Ulster regrouped. Stuart McCloskey changed that three minutes into the second half as he bagged his first URC try of the season before Nick Timoney, Dave McCann and Jacob Stockdale all crossed to secure the bonus point win.

"We made quite hard work of it in the first half; to get over the line three times and not get the ball down makes it very difficult," said Murphy. "The lads regathered well at half-time, they came back out. With the two-man advantage in the first five minutes, we took advantage and got what we needed in the end.

"Scarlets is always a tough place to come. I know they're not at the end of the table they would normally expect to be at but it's still a tough place to come and the crowd get into it, get behind them, give them loads of encouragement.

"We'll take this win, regroup and try to go again next week. We're not going to get carried away, we're going to deal with every game as it comes and our next one is Leinster, so it's a massive one."

Murphy also had high praise for Jacob Stockdale, who has been back to his best again in recent weeks. "He's a great fella, he's quite an easy going character," said Murphy.

"He wants to be at his best and he wants to go on this Irish tour at the end of the year. Off the back of the Cardiff game, the Benetton game and this game, he's starting to build some form and some confidence. He's recently had a second child, which is great, and that took him a couple weeks to settle down, he didn't come on tour to South Africa with us and it took him away from the starting team. But he's come back and he's doing really well now."

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