Context is important, of course. While Ulster have endured their fair share of woes this season, Exeter have had an even rougher time of it.
Rob Baxter’s side arrived in Belfast on the back of a 69-17 shellacking at the hands of Bordeaux, a 12th loss in 13 games across the Premiership and Champions Cup this season.
It was a much-changed side, too, with only three players retained and shorn of frontline stars such as Henry Slade or Dafydd Jenkins among others.
With that, an enterprising first-half performance perhaps caught Ulster on the hop, no more so than when Ross Vintcent left Stewart Moore and Rob Lyttle in his wake on his way to scoring a sensational solo try.
There was to be no great collapse for Ulster this time, though.
Within 10 minutes of the restart, returning hooker Rob Herring had sealed the bonus-point score and from there the floodgates opened as Cormac Izuchukwu scored his second and third tries either side of Ben Carson’s wonderful individual effort and Dave McCann’s second.
Ulster played some lovely stuff, too. Jude Postlethwaite’s delightful offload sent Michael Lowry away in the build-up to Carson’s try while Izuchukwu’s second came at the end of one of the best passages of play Richie Murphy’s side have mustered all season.
“They’ve done a really good job tonight,” Murphy said of his team.
“There’s loads of things we’ll want to look back at and fix and get better at. But ultimately, the guys played for each other and the fans were brilliant, getting right in behind them.”
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