Ulster centre Stuart McCloskey believes the side have “still got loads to work on” despite a largely strong start to their season.
The northern province go into Saturday’s United Rugby Championship (URC) game against Connacht at Dexcom Stadium on Saturday (17:30 GMT) fifth in the table on 22 points having played a game fewer than those above them.
Even after surrendering a lead to Leinster last weekend, no side in the league has scored more than Ulster’s 29 tries during the 2025-26 campaign.
“I think we probably know from the weekend where we are, I think we’re close enough,” said the Irish international.
“To give Leinster a good run on the weekend, we probably should have come on top if we’d done a few things differently in the second half.
“So, we know where we are. I think our attack has been brilliant, our defence has moved in the right direction.”
It is all a marked improvement from last season when Ulster finished outside of the URC play-offs, as the fourth of the Irish provinces and failed to qualify for top-tier European competition for the first time in their history.
“Listen, it wasn’t great last year,” said McCloskey.
“It’s nice to come in here saying we’ve scored the most tries in the league and we’ve still got loads to work on.
“I think there’s so much growth in the team and we look back after most games and go, how much better we could have been?”
The Leinster loss last time out, in a game Ulster led by 10 points at half-time, came after losing a 14-point advantage during the final quarter against Cardiff in the Challenge Cup.
Heading to Galway off the back of their first back-to-back losses, McCloskey believes Ulster have to continue what they have done well to this point in the season rather than change approach for an interprovincial derby.
“I think we just want to go out and make sure we play the game we’ve been playing for the first eight games of the season this week and not try to do anything different just because it’s Connacht.”