Former Ulster and Ireland back row Stephen Ferris admitted it was increasingly difficult to unearth any positives from the province's performances after they made it three defeats from three in the Investec Champions Cup on Saturday.
Ulster raced into a 10-0 lead over Leicester Tigers but ultimately wilted thereafter as the home side ran in six tries to seal a 38-10 victory at Welford Road.
The result leaves Richie Murphy's side without a point from their three pool games so far and needing a sizable points difference turnaround to snatch fourth place in Pool 1 even if they beat the only side below them, Exeter Chiefs, on Friday.
Speaking to RTÉ 2fm's Game On, Ferris outlined the sense of despondency he felt in seeing the province slip to defeat again up close.
"It's starting to get a bit difficult to actually work on the games and commentate on them most weeks," he admitted.
"And I know they got a pretty good result against Connacht in their last fixture - probably in my opinion, Connacht took their eye off the ball and just thought they'd get the job done and Ulster sort of turned up.
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"On Saturday night, they had a Leicester team, they were pretty physical, they matched them in every facet of the game in the first half.
"Handre Pollard, just before half-time, there was a penalty given, he kicked to the corner. (Leicester) ended up going through a few phases and (Josh) Bassett got in on the corner to go in 12-10 at half-time and then Leicester came out in the second half, kicked the leather off the ball, made the Ulster back three make a bag full of mistakes and they just capitalised off it."
Ferris felt a leadership and experience void has been hampering Ulster, compounded by those aforementioned errors.
"Ulster just ran out of steam. It's the same old story. Plenty of effort, you cannot question that," he said.
"These are all a bunch of young lads who are sticking to the task as much as they can but ultimately they just run out of puff and they don't have that much leadership in the team, they don't have that much experience in the team.
"Zac Ward playing in the back three, he was playing Sevens and he was playing back row for the Ballynahinch Rugby Club 18 months ago and now he's finding himself on the wing for Ulster.
"It's going to take time. Ethan McIlroy, it looks like he's done a cruciate ligament injury pretty early on in the game which wasn't good news and Werner Kok, as much experience as he brings, he gets caught out of position multiple times.
"But all in all, another disappointing evening. Much to build on? Well, the only positive is that they could give Exeter a bit of a doing-over this weekend if Exeter aren't up for it."
If there is a silver lining for Ulster, it's the possibility of holding onto fifth in the pool by beating the English side and getting the consolation of a last 16 spot in the Challenge Cup.
"I think realistically that would be a good thing. I think if they could get a run in the Challenge Cup, I think supporters would get a lot more excited about the Challenge Cup too if they could go deeper into that cup," he said.
"To be honest, I think the players would probably prefer that as well. Imagine for some odd reason you scrape into that top four and next thing you have to go to Bordeaux in the last-16 or go away to Toulouse or have a really tough fixture, I don't think that's what Richie Murphy or the coaching staff would preferably like."
Watch Leinster v Bath (kick-off 5.30pm, Saturday) on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player or follow our live blog on RTÉ.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app or listen to live commentary on RTÉ Radio 1's Saturday Sport
