With 66 points, 10 tries, five yellow cards and some late chaos, the 33-33 draw between Glasgow and Ulster is an early contender for one of the games of the United Rugby Championship season.

For Ulster head coach Richie Murphy, however, said it was “too entertaining from a coach’s point of view”.

The northern province headed to Glasgow off the back of a defeat at home by Edinburgh in their league opener, when Murphy’s side were ultimately undone by a slow start.

Glasgow, on the other hand, only lost once at Scotstoun in the entirety of last season and were favourites on Saturday after their opening win at Munster.

“I thought we should have won the game,” Murphy said.

“It’s a little bit bittersweet, but we will take three points home; coming out here, probably people didn’t really give us a chance.”

Looking for their first win at Scotstoun in more than five years, Ulster made the perfect start when Bryn Ward crashed over in the fourth minute, but Josh McKay hit back for Glasgow.

The hosts were reduced to 14 men when Dan Lancaster was sent to the sin-bin for a deliberate knock-on, and Ulster immediately capitalised when Ethan McIlroy crossed.

Despite being a player down, Glasgow hit back through Kyle Rowe’s try, but Ulster held a five-point lead at the break when Jack Murphy scored in the final play of the half after the hosts had a penalty overturned.

Ulster were sitting pretty when Chay Mullins secured the try bonus point, but centre Ben Carson was sent to the sin-bin for a high tackle and McIlroy followed in the next play for a deliberate knock on.

Glasgow scored three tries in a nine-minute burst through Jamie Dobie, Sam Talakai and Rowe, and looked set to surge clear for back-to-back wins.

But there was late drama as Rory Darge and Talakai were sin-binned inside the final 10 minutes after repeated Glasgow infringements on their own line, and Nathan Doak converted Juarno Augustus’ try to level the game.

George Horne struck the post with a penalty with four minutes left, and the sides had to settle for a draw only after Ulster Wing Zac Ward was tackled into touch to end the game.

Murphy felt the game was “a bit crazy” and thought his side played some “great rugby”.

“I love the way we came out and attacked the game in the first half. We played some really nice pieces and scored some good tries,” he said.

“We’re probably in complete control of the game when Ben’s unlucky in a collision and gets a yellow card.”

The former Ireland Under-20s head coach said he was “disappointed” in how Glasgow got back into the game with their nine-minute burst, but Ulster looked “more comfortable” when they had 15 players back on the field.

Murphy said it was about “staying calm in the heat of battle” when Glasgow were reduced to 13.

“We’re quite a process-driven team, so getting players in the right position and doing the right things in the 80th minute is difficult,” he added.

“But I think if we were a little bit calmer on the ball, I think we would have been able to construct a score.

“Look, we’ll take the three points and we’ll move on.”

The draw and the additional try-scoring bonus point leaves Ulster on five points from their opening two matches.

They face Munster next Saturday in Belfast as they search for their first win of the season, but also their first home victory in four matches.

“Munster is huge. Our record at home over the last number of games hasn’t been good enough for us,” Murphy added.

“There’s been reasons in relation to team selection and things, but we need to right that.”

Ulster will hope to have Jacob Stockdale available for the game after the Ireland international pulled out of what was set to be his 150th Ulster appearance. Murphy said it was a hip issue and “it wasn’t the right thing to let him go out and play at this stage of the season”.

Murphy expects Munster to provide tough opposition on Saturday, with the southern province having beaten last season’s finalists the Bulls in Limerick in round two.

“Irish inter-pros tend to be like that, but we’re really looking forward to it.”