The latest reversal came in Cape Town as Ulster went down 33-7 to the Stormers on Saturday.

It marked the first time this season Ulster failed to score four tries in a game or come away with a match point.

Head coach Murphy felt Ulster’s squad depth has been severely tested over the last couple of weeks.

“It's never easy to come to South Africa...to start in Bulls last week and put in a big performance,” said Murphy. “I suppose from there lose nine players and have to fly another seven players over to fill their places means you're under a bit of pressure.

“Just for a bit of cohesion, especially when you get into the second half and you can see you’ve picked up a number of injuries.

"Full back got injured in the first half, 13 injured, a wing injured and we end up with a nine on the wing, a 10, at 13 and the winger at full-back.

“So, it sort of tests your depth and back end of the game we looked a bit tired.

"I think we need to get back home...we're going to take a few days off and give lads a little break in order to come back fresh and ready to go.

“Sort of it's a funny kind of time because we'll have nine guys in the national squad, we've got six guys in the national A squad or national 15 squad...so there's 15 guys going to be away for the second week of this break.”

Despite zero wins from the opening five league games and sitting in the bottom four of the table, Murphy still has faith in his side.

“I don't think it's one thing,” said Murphy. “I think it's a lot of everything.

“We're not a million miles away, you can see at 7-0 we have a scrum. We get to a metre out and we just knock the ball on as we're going over the line...at 7-0 I think the Stormers are in a little bit of pain.

"But we give away a knock on there, that scrum ends up being a penalty, the penalty ends up being a line out. The line out ends up being a penalty, the next line out ends up being a penalty and then they score.

"So 7-0 becomes 7-7...game changes, a gift before half-time, a gift after half-time and then the game, you're under pressure.”

Murphy felt the Stormers had the upper hand in the scrum.

“I think everyone's doing the work on the scrums, they'll just not be able to survive against the South African packs," he said. “Around the scrum they are definitely ahead of everyone else probably in the world and they seem to have this ability to produce front five forwards.

“So the scrum had a major part to play in the game.

"If you think about the knock-on that we have at 7-0 to go 14-0, that ends up in a scrum penalty. Kick to the 10-metre line, it's a maul, it's a maul penalty, kick to the 22, it's a maul, it's a maul penalty, yellow card, kick to the corner.

"So it's forward dominance that's sort of creating those opportunities and for teams that don't have that, it becomes quite hard to get away from.”