Stephen Ferris believes Ulster need to show more cohesion and greater consistency in team selection to bounce back from a disappointing defeat to Edinburgh in time for a crucial run of Champions Cup games.
The province suffered a 24-27 defeat to the Scottish side at Kingspan Ravenhill on Saturday despite having a number of leading lights available and Edinburgh reeling from a poor result at home to Benetton Treviso the previous week.
Speaking on RTÉ's Game On, former Ulster and Ireland back-row Ferris felt the province was "dominated" at scrum time, struggled with their maul defence and were "devoid of ideas" with ball in hand, which will be a concern with back-to-back European pool games against Bath and Racing 92 coming over the next fortnight.
"I think over the last number of weeks, Ulster have actually been going well in the first 20 minutes of matches," he said.
"You saw it in Glasgow the week before, they went 14-0 up and were flying it against Edinburgh in the opening 10 or 15 minutes of the game. But they are just fizzling out in matches and for me, it's very difficult to say this is the reason why.
"There has been so much chop and change in the squad, there have been so many players used, young academy guys coming in getting their first caps over the last number of weeks.
"Billy Burns has been in and out, him and Jake Flannery have been switching about, Nathan Doak and John Cooney switching about.
"The centre partnership, I think that's only their second game this season starting together and obviously (Steven) Kitshoff has just arrived, Rob Herring has been out injured.
"There are so many different variables to say why the team isn't firing on all cylinders. There needs to be a little bit more cohesion and in the team selection, there needs to be more consistency with that and hopefully the guys can gel and put in a performance over the next couple of weeks.
"But I tell you what, it's going to be tough. Bath away, Racing at home and then Leinster... it's going to be an important few weeks."
Donal Lenihan and Bernard Jackman also gave their views on Ulster's setback when they joined Against The Head, with the former also underlining their inconsistency.
💬 "There's something definitely missing because they have some real quality in that squad"
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) December 4, 2023
Donal Lenihan and Bernard Jackman react to Ulster's setback at home to Edinburgh #RTERugby #AgainstTheHead pic.twitter.com/K6hDIgABuc
"I just think there's a soft edge there. There's something definitely missing because they have some real quality in that squad," said Lenihan.
Ulster head coach Dan McFarland had lamented the training performance in the build-up to the defeat, a point Jackman picked up on.
"You very rarely hear a coach actually identify the issue," he said.
"The results haven't been too bad up to then. They limped home against the Lions which wasn't a great performance but the result was OK.
"They shouldn't have beaten Munster I didn't think and obviously that (Edinburgh match) was a big loss for them.
"Edinburgh are OK but Ulster should be beating Edinburgh at home, so maybe that's the result that they wake up and go, 'right, we need to be better here', because at the moment they're just coasting along, as they have done for the last couple of years and talked about being contenders without ever being contenders."
Watch Munster v Bayonne in the Champions Cup on Saturday from 4.45pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player, follow a live blog on www.rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app or listen to commentary on RTÉ Radio 1
