Heineken Champions Cup: Dan McFarland 'not delving into soul' over Ulster form

Dan McFarland insists he still has full belief in his processes as Ulster head coach despite the club's poor form.

Ulster travel to reigning champions La Rochelle in the Heineken Champions Cup after five defeats in six matches.

The province's recent form has seen them drop to fourth in the United Rugby Championship table and leaves them in a precarious position in Europe.

"I'm not delving into my soul to find out whether I'm suddenly a bad head coach or not," said McFarland.

Ulster went down heavily, 39-0, away to Sale in their Champions Cup opener in December, then picked up two bonus points in a 36-29 reverse against La Rochelle.

After making a promising start to their URC campaign, McFarland's men have suffered defeats by Leinster, Munster and Benetton, with their solitary victory in their past four outings in that competition coming in a narrow 22-20 win over Connacht.

Ulster now travel to Ronan O'Gara's reigning European champions as big underdogs as they look to revive their fortunes.

McFarland says Ulster's recent form has reminded him of his time as a coach with Connacht, who lost 13 games in a row.

"You learn that is part of the job and there are times where you are on an nice trajectory and you are improving, then there are times like now, where there might be configuration of a few little variables which mean you get knocked down," he added.

"You've got to build out of it. I'm not going to say it is water off a duck's back, I just want to win.

"I love winning, but that isn't the reason I live. The reason I live is because I love my job. It's a challenging job and when I come in on the Monday I'm invigorated."

'You question yourself'

McFarland, who took over as head coach in 2018, added he has a "brilliant support network" and any self-reflection over Ulster's form is "on a detail level".

He added he has turned to former Harlequins head coach John Kingston for advice on how to deal with Ulster's slump in form.

"My experience of the 13 games losing with Connacht is, we had to hold on to the things we really believed in, which was that backs against the wall, come out fighting type of mindset.

"We believed in that and that was important to us."

While Ulster are some way off repeating that infamous feat with Connacht, McFarland says his approach is the same and his team have to "just believe in what you are doing".

"In professional sport, you are never far away from what you are doing and doing it well," added the 50-year-old.

"If you've always done it badly, then you have to focus on key things you can improve, but if you know you have done it well at a time, then it is making sure you believe in what you do and focusing on that.

"You are questioning your day-to-day and what you are doing, but you can't do it too much.

"You can send yourself down a rabbit hole on that. I know the processes we do are effective. They are good quality, high performance processes.

"I need to use my energy to keep driving those forward and improve day in, day out."