MUNSTER HEAD COACH Anthony Foley admits Saturday’s defeat to Leinster was a particularly bitter pill to swallow as his side’s Champions Cup hopes were dented.
The southern province are now in serious danger of missing out on a top six finish in the Pro12 and the pressure on Foley is intensifying with each setback in what has turned out to be an increasingly difficult season.
He watched his side fight their way back into the game at the Aviva Stadium only to fall just short of claiming at least a draw, if not more.
In the end, they came away from Dublin 4 with just a point to show for their efforts after Dave Kilcoyne opted to tap and go from a penalty rather than take the three points on offer and a share of the spoils.
In the immediate aftermath, Foley backed his players and said you have to trust them to make the right decisions out on the pitch.
“I’d have taken a draw but I’d have also taken a win as well,” he said. “It’s hard to have to take the loss to be honest with you but you trust players out on the pitch to make decisions, you back them, then you review them and then you look at what we can do better.
“There’ll be a few clips around that but there was a lot of good out there as well, a lot of good performances out there. To come up to Dublin and nearly win the game at the end, going away after the game we would be very pleased but unfortunately it didn’t happen.”
With just three games remaining, Munster currently sit in sixth position but with a trip to Connacht up next and a home game against seventh-place Edinburgh, they are far from assured of European qualification.
“We’ve got to win our next game,” Foley continued. “That’s the most important thing and it’s going to be a tough game in Galway, we know that. I don’t think anyone would be fooled if I said otherwise. We need to get back on track and win again.
“We’re no different to any other club that wants to get in there [Champions Cup]. We want to get in there, it’s something that everyone else will focus, we’ll turn our focus to Connacht and try and get a result up in Galway and see where that takes us.
“It’s about winning rugby matches for us, everything else around that is white noise because it doesn’t help. We just need to make sure we know what we’re doing.”
As Munster’s campaign hangs by a thread and the levels of discontent amongst supporters grows, Foley was asked whether the fear of missing out on the Champions Cup can be used as a motivating factor.
He replied: “You can’t really hit them with the same tick over and over. I think they’re getting that from everywhere. Where we need to be is playing the game and making sure we’re winning the game, and putting a knife to people’s throats isn’t going to help the cause.
“What will help the cause is us being better at what we’re doing, and we weren’t a million miles away on Saturday, and it’s about making sure that the next time we tog out that we’re up there.”
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