Humphreys: We had to work hard to build confidence

Director of Operations at Ulster rugby David Humphreys has said the side had to work hard to rebuild their confidence after the opening-day defeat to The Dragons.

The hard work paid off with a morale-boosting shock win over the Ospreys on Sunday.

"We were very disappointed after the Dragons game. As the management team, you begin to doubt yourself. You ask if you've failed to prepare the players properly," he said.

"We knew we were better than we'd shown in Newport. The intensity, the energy, the enthusiasm - those things were missing last week. So all week long we talked about getting a positive reaction.

"We know what we see every day in training, so we were pretty sure that last week had been a blip…We were very keen to prove that to ourselves and everybody else.

"Let's not get carried away. It's one result. Just because we have beaten Ospreys on their own ground doesn't make us a great team, just as the fact that we lost to Newport didn't make us a bad team.

"But we're all professionals and the players know they are judged on performances and results. They knew they hadn't done themselves justice in the first match and you saw the reaction to that.

"It can't just be a one-off, though. That has to be our level of performance on a consistent basis. Consistency is what it is all about."