It wasn’t long before Cardiff flyhalf Dan Parks stamped his authority on the game however, the former Scottish number 10 touched down just after half time and boasted a personal tally of 16 points at the final whistle.

A late Pienaar penalty salvaged a losing bonus point for Ulster but McLaughlin feels there was more on offer for his side if they could have converted their pressure into scores.

“The difference between the two sides is that they took their chances and we didn’t take ours,” McLaughlin said.

“We squandered too many opportunities and we didn’t respect the rugby ball enough.

“We got turned over too easily and gave away silly penalties. The problem was that we just couldn’t control the ball.

"I think if you look at the game, whenever we got into the opposition 22 we weren’t ruthless enough.

“We had chance after chance but we weren’t able to convert the pressure that we had into points.

24-year old Welsh winger Tom James claimed his 34th try in Cardiff colours on the hour mark when he collected a borderline forward pass before Ulster fly-half Ian Humphreys was sin-binned for a deliberate knock-on.

A last-minute Dan Parks penalty would have sent Ulster home empty-handed but his effort was off-target.

Ulster currently lie sixth in the RaboDirect PRO12 table but McLaughlin is confident his team can produce the results needed to earn them a place in the PRO12 play-off in May.

“We’re leaving here with a bonus point so that’s some consolation.

“It shows you how far we’ve come that we can come to a place like this and be very, very disappointed not to come home with more.

“It is going to be very tight but that bonus point could prove crucial.