Regrets will haunt Munster as golden opportunity slips from their reach

AS KICK-OFF BETWEEN Munster and Glasgow Warriors inched closer on Saturday, Peter O’Mahony delivered one last rallying call to his teammates, reminding them “there’s no tomorrow” should they fail to get the job done over the next 80 minutes.

The prize on the line was a home URC final against the Bulls and the potential for one of the great Munster days, but by the end of an utterly deflating day at Thomond Park the pre-game sense of cautious optimism had long been sucked out of the place.

With the crowds making their way out of the ground for the final time this season, Graham Rowntree addressed his team in the dressing room, thanking the club’s departing players for their service while apologising for not sending them off with a medal around their necks.

He would later state the nature of the defeat would take a while to sink in, but the dejection on his face said he even more. Munster had a huge opportunity within their grasp here, but blew it with the finish line in sight.

After an encouraging start their game quickly became far too disjointed. There were set-piece struggles, discipline issues, poor decision-making and most tellingly, a shockingly low return rate in the Glasgow 22 as Munster’s handling and accuracy went to pieces. It wasn’t the most encouraging evening for Ireland coaches Andy Farrell and Paul O’Connell, who watched on from the stands as they prepare to finalise a squad to tour South Africa next month.

Across a first-half in which Munster had 63% of the possession and 71% of the territory, their dominance of the ball yielded only three points from the boot of Jack Crowley.

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Their sole try was a wonderful piece of quick, clinical attacking play finished by Antoine Frisch in the 55th minute but otherwise they never really looked capable of cracking a superb Warriors defensive effort, while their game management was poor across the final quarter as they struggled to get out of their own half before losing Alex Nankivell to a red card.

Rowntree admitted his team lacked composure and felt they were guilty of forcing things with ball in hand. On the back of wins in which their attack struggled for large parts against Ulster and the Ospreys, that will be a sore point for the coaching team over the summer months.

Glasgow were worthy winners, their pressure forcing many of those Munster errors while they were clinical in striking for their two tries.

Glasgow were deserving winners in Limerick.

“You’ve got to give credit to the opposition as well in forcing mistakes too,” said Munster captain Tadhg Beirne, who was the province’s outstanding performer with a typically relentless shift.

“We’ve had some good opposition over the last two weeks and talking about the composure piece as well, just forcing things a little bit. We’ve spoken a little bit as well, at times we’ve had moments where we’ve gone off script, the gameplan, and that has led to errors. I don’t think we really went off the gameplan today, maybe we probably did when there was 70 minutes on the field.

“We probably overplayed a little bit inside our 40. Ten minutes is a long time in rugby and that’s probably something we’re going to look at next week, we don’t need to play five or six phases inside our 40, we should be probably clearing that. That leads to a scrum and then eventually to three points and unfortunately a red card so they’re moments in the game where we have to be smarter, be more composed and stick to the gameplan.”

Injuries perhaps took their toll – with Calvin Nash, Tom Ahern, Joey Carbery, Jean Kleyn, Dave Kilcoyne and Edwin Edogbo all among the unavailable on Saturday – but the review will focus on areas which remained in their control.

Munster struggled to get their wide players involved against Glasgow and the 6/2 bench split which had been proving so effective since their two-game trip to South Africa in April didn’t work in their favour this time as they chased the game.

Success arrived unexpectedly early under Rowntree when he led the province to the URC title last season but as defending champions and with home advantage in the knock-outs, they couldn’t scale the same heights.

A deflated Rowntree summoned some positivity when asked if he had a message for the province’s supporters.

“Stick with us, keep the faith… You know, 23 months ago, put a new coaching team together, it’s changed how we’re playing the game. Since then we’ve won a trophy, finished top of the league in our second season and a home semi-final. Lost our way in a knockout game tonight, through two bounces of the ball.

There’s a lot there that the fans can see where we’re going. The players are enjoying the brand of rugby, playing a brand of rugby that everyone wants to see.

“We came up short tonight, it’s going to sting. It won’t derail us by any means. The fans will stay with us, I know that. I don’t need to give them a message.”

“I think we have shown in the last two seasons what we can do and what we are capable of doing,” added Beirne.

“We fell short but at the end of the day, they defended well but they also scored two tries whereas on another day that doesn’t happen to us and we come away with a victory.

“I don’t think we performed poorly today, we weren’t clinical. I think at times we played well but definitely, the future is certainly bright. Hopefully we will be able to do it next year.”