Ulster need to up their physicality and are too 'nice' to play against, former Ireland international Stephen Ferris has warned.
Richie Murphy's side beat URC champions Glasgow at home in the opening match, a tie in which they were second best for large spells, but lost heavily against the Lions (35-22) and Bulls (47-21) in South Africa.
Pete Wilkins’ high-flying Connacht, with 11 points from a possible 15, are the visitors to Kingspan Stadium on Saturday evening.
Ulster are currently 13th in the standings and boast the worst scrum return of the 16 teams; they are 15th in the lineout rankings and 14th in defence.
Rebuilding and bringing through younger players is the theme of Murphy’s first full season in charge but Ferris, who played over 100 times for the province, has concerns.
"Every team has these young guys with lots of potential coming through but Ulster are struggling to find these guys, specifically in the forwards," he told RTÉ 2fm’s Game On.
"You go back to 2006/07 or 2012/13, there was always a pack there to give you front-foot ball.
"You look at that Bulls side, they were in second gear, going through the motions, their big pack of forwards ate Ulster up.
"We haven’t seen the best of Aidan Morgan at out-half, haven’t seen the best of Mike Lowry, who was outstanding at the end of last season.
"I feel Ulster are a nice team to play against. They are not a team that really get wired into you, they don’t make dominant tackles.
"I think it’s one in every 100 tackles is a dominant tackle, that’s not going to make inroads and put teams on the back foot.
"If you hold onto the ball against Ulster, inevitably you will score.
"Ulster can fire back and are very good at scoring points themselves and some nice tries but you’ve got to make it really difficult for the opposition when you don’t have the ball, and at the minute Ulster are struggling in that department.
"Richie Murphy (above) is not in to win a European Cup this season, he’s been brought in to build a squad over the next two to three years that will compete at the top table.
"At the minute it’s tough going, the boys will have to suck it up, learn from the defeats."
The 2006 champions are actually second in the 'defenders beaten' stakes, while their cause hasn't been helped by the loss of Cormac Izuchukwu, Harry Sheridan and Jude Postlethwaite to the Emerging Ireland tour, however, the latter has returned to Ulster and will be available on Saturday.
"Connacht will fancy their chances," added Ferris, who won 35 Ireland caps before retiring in 2014.
"They’ve got a lot of confidence out of their last two victories.
"It could be a really tense battle, especially if the likes of Finlay Bealham and [Denis] Buckley are in the front row.
"Ulster really haven’t found a replacement for [Steven] Kitshoff and Marty Moore has retired.
"The one positive is, they have played slightly better from Glasgow, even though it was a win, the last couple of weeks there has been improvement in their attack.
"So it’s about being able to get the physicality stakes going through the roof in the next couple of weeks and hopefully they can make inroads."
Watch Leinster v Munster in the URC on Saturday from 5pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player. Follow a live blog on RTÉ.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app and listen to live commentary with Saturday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1
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