LEO CULLEN FELT his Leinster team paid the price for a lack of cohesion after Jack Crowley’s late drop goal settled a thrilling URC semi-final at Aviva Stadium.
The Munster out-half split the posts in the 77th minute to send the visitors through to a URC final date with the Stormers, and end Leinster’s double-dream for the season.
The home side rested the majority of their frontliners for the fixture, with an eye on next Saturday’s Champions Cup final meeting with La Rochelle, and Cullen felt the changes from last weekend’s quarter-final defeat of the Sharks resulted in a lack of cohesion on the pitch.
“With the team that we have, yeah, for sure. We had guys coming back in at this stage of the year as well and that’s the challenge for us. Yeah, it didn’t quite go our way.
“We were very close to it, very close to closing out the game. It’s disappointing we weren’t quite able to do that but again you have to give credit to Munster. There’s two teams fighting right to the very end, they nail their opportunity at the death and we don’t get another chance.
“We were very, very close to winning a semi-final. Unfortunately not today. Again, back to that cohesion part, they had a more settled group there today and that’s a call that we made and we have to accept the consequences of that now. Munster look strong but we fight our way back in and repel and repel them on numerous occasions so the fight among the lads is great.
“You couldn’t fault them for a second and Joe McCarthy comes off the bench and scores a great try. We had a couple of more opportunities and were very close. We got the ball reefed out around the tryline or get barged off the breakdown near the tryline a few times.
When you’re in semi-finals and finals you need to be able to nail your opportunities and we weren’t quite good enough today.
“Munster, you could see what it meant to them at the end. It was always going to be a very tight game and we just weren’t quite good enough today.”
Cullen also felt his side’s discipline proved costly, Leinster conceding 11 penalties to Munster’s five.
“Yeah, we’ll have to have a look back. The guys scrambled well. The challenge with some of the selection is around some of the cohesion. We knew we were taking a bit of a risk with that piece. We talked about the challenge of trying to fight on two fronts and unfortunately we have come unstuck with it today.
“For us now we can’t dwell on it too much. That’s the reality. We can’t dwell on it this week because we’re out again next weekend against La Rochelle here. They will be desperate to retain their trophy so it’s two teams going hard at it again and hopefully it will be a great occasion.
“That’s what we have to look forward to now. There are lot of things in that game there today that we can be better at but it’s over now. You’ve got to give Munster credit. They stuck to it right to the end.”
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