When John Cooney kicked a 72nd-penalty to put Ulster 22-8 up at the Sportsground, his head coach Dan McFarland felt it was the wrong call.
But by the time the final whistle had sounded, it's safe to say his opinion had changed.
Cooney's penalty proved the difference as Ulster clung on for a nervy 22-20 win, with Jack Carty missing an injury-time conversion to snatch an undeserved draw for Connacht.
Ulster, who had looked in control following two Tom Stewart tries after the interval, suffered a late collapse as Connacht replacements Jarrad Butler and Adam Byrne touched down.
"That would be standard Connacht, wouldn’t it?" said McFarland, a former player and coach with the province.
"How many times have teams come here and eked out a lead, but are hanging on desperately at the end? More often that not, they end up winning.
"At the time I didn’t want us to kick for goal to go to 22 points. I thought our maul was going well enough to get a try and then we could put it to bed for real. But you never know.
"Who made the call? The players, as they would normally. I tend to try and not interfere with that."
Despite the late drama, McFarland was pleased with his side’s performance as they snapped a three-game losing skid.
Ulster had just a Rob Lyttle try to show for their first-half efforts and their 5-3 lead at the break was an unsatisfactory one, but Stewart scored twice after the restart from driving lineouts to take his tally for the season to seven.
Ulster should have kicked on from there and claimed a try bonus point, but instead they found themselves hanging on at the death.
"There were large portions of tonight’s game where we played really well, particularly in that third quarter when playing into the wind, we started to pile on the pressure and score points," said McFarland.
"But we are still seeing parts of our game that genuinely have to increase.
"We earned ourselves five opportunities in Connacht's 22 in the first half, and we scored from one of them.
"The only thing that was letting us down there was our ball presentation, the speed and cleanless of our ruck ball. We made a lineout error as well – we just needed to up the accuracy and intensity in that area.
"Connacht were defending well in the second half, they managed to hold onto the ball for long periods in difficult conditions, but we managed to eke out penalties and put pressure on their kicking game, even when they had the wind. That allowed us opportunities to get our maul going."
Connacht came close to extending their unbeaten run to four games but Andy Friend felt his side got what they deserved.
The Westerners were once again blunt in attack while their kicking game was inaccurate and put them under unnecessary pressure.
"You can’t play 75 minutes of footy like that and expect to get a win," said the Connacht director of rugby. "We nearly snuck a draw but it wasn’t to be.
"I actually felt with 13 minutes when we were 11 points down that we could score two tries here and win this.
"They got that kick to make it 14, we can still score two, but again what had happened in the previous 72 minutes, we just kept coughing up ball.
"We started to string something together and then there would be a simple knock-on or turnover, a penalty to release pressure. It was just a frustrating game."
Listen to live commentary of Munster v Leinster (26 December, 7.35pm) on RTÉ Radio 1, or follow our live blogs on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app.
