Whilst Bordeaux went into the game as top seeds and Ulster ranked bottom – the province were certainly more than a match for their French opposition. The hosts might have outscored Ulster by six tries to five but Richie Murphy’s side had two second half tries chalked off by the TMO. “The TMO came in twice and took away two tries and if those two tries had stood...those last three or four minutes could have been ours,” suggested O’Connor. “There was a lot of character shown and I’m really proud of the boys on how we went about our business. “There was a lot of fight shown which was good, our last few games in the league we have got done by a few points but we have come back and shown great fight. “There is plenty to work on. Going 21 points down and crawling our way back into it and then conceding that score just before half-time for them to go 28-14 up...that was maybe a small bit of a killer. “I think if we had held on at their end of the first half, we could have been in it more earlier in the second half.” Once again Ulster were undone by a slow start conceding 21 unanswered points in the opening 21 minutes. O’Connor reflected: “Bordeaux are so good at transition play and they have so many talented players that can see space and take it straight away. "They have the big boys coming on the hard lines as well, so once they get momentum, it is really hard to get back in the fight as a defence, it is tough whenever they get in behind you.” O’Connor feels Ulster can take plenty of confidence from the performance against Bordeaux into the last four URC games as the side looks to secure another shot at knock-out rugby this season and qualify for next season’s Champions Cup. “We have taken 14 points out of a possible 15 in the league, so we are coming in with a bit of momentum and it is good that we are starting in the fight and if we get into the right areas of the pitch, we know what our game can do,” he stated. “We are going all the time and we are starting to show what we are working on in training is starting to pay off. “These are the places that you want to come and play, playing in any French ground is always special, we had a mishap with our bus, so we ended up walking through the crowd. It was a great atmosphere and something special. “With the traffic we couldn’t get through one of the streets, we were going to swing around but then it was quicker to jump out and walk, it was alright and I’m not making excuses for that. “As a player you relish playing in these grounds, even a half hour to 40 minutes after the final whistle it is still bouncing out there, people hanging around enjoying the party. “As a club Ulster always want to be shooting for the top. “We all want to compete against the best and for me as a rugby player it is a no brainer I want to play in the top tier and challenge ourselves as an individual and as a unit. “As we have shown on days like this we can stand up and we can score plenty of points and there are things we need to work on but that game was maybe there for us in the last 10 minutes if a couple of other things had gone our way.”