REGRETS, STUART LANCASTER had a few. After watching his team come up short in Thomond Park on Saturday evening, the Connacht head coach couldn’t help but wonder what might have been.

His young side battled hard against a Munster team who are now five wins from five in the URC, but couldn’t hold out as they fell to a 17-15 defeat. 

Connacht had played some bright rugby in winning the first half three tries to two, but saw their opportunites with ball in hand limited after the restart, instead left defending their line for long periods as Munster chipped away and eventually struck for the decisive score. Connacht had just 36% of the possession and made 256 tackles to Munster’s 181.

The result leaves Connacht in 12th place in the URC table on nine points, with just one win from their opening block of fixtures – they are one of four teams to have only played four games after the opening five rounds of games.

Lancaster felt his side could have had more from the game, while taking encouragement from the manner of the performance.

“There’s always regrets, but overall my job coming in here was to start to learn about the players and learn about the group,” Lancaster said.

Stuart Lancaster. Ben Brady / INPHO Ben Brady / INPHO / INPHO

“I feel I’ve learned a lot, coming away to Thomond Park and places like this, you learn a lot about the character and spirit. There’s no issues there, we’ve got a tremendous group of players who want to work hard for each, be a bit more accurate under pressure, but overall the foundations of what we’re building is strong.

“I’m confident because we’ve got some good players who are away with with Ireland, a couple of good players who are injured, and we’ve got some very good young players coming through. So the experience for (players) like Sean Naughton or Harry West out there is invaluable.”

After leading 15-12 at half time, Connacht failed to score in the second period – with Jack O’Donoghue’s second try for the home side the only points of the second 40.

“I think the accuracy of our kicking game and our chase obviously at times could be better,” Lancaster said.

“I think we can certainly improve in that regard. And the small moments, you need to go your way. I could play back two or three examples in the second half where I thought Ben Murphy was away, twice, and it got pulled back, so you need those moments to go your way sometimes as well. But credit to Munster, they dug in as they do here and they found a way to win.”

One of Connacht’s more obvious regrets might centre around the decision to select a 6/2 bench, a gamble which left Lancaster juggling his options as injuries mounted – the province lost winger Finn Treacy to a HIA after 10 minutes, while fellow winger Byron Ralston left on a motorised stretcher following a lengthy delay early in the second half. Connacht did not yet have an update on Ralston’s injury in their post-match press conference.

“It always is (a regret) if you lose a back early on,” Lancaster said of his bench.

“Yeah, it’s a risk you take sometimes. I mean, I don’t think it affected the outcome of the game, if I’m being honest, because Matty (Devine) and Ben (Murphy) have both spent a lot of time on the wing in training.

“So I wasn’t concerned by that, and as I say, there’s one or two moments where I’m looking and thinking, I’m sure Ben Murphy’s away there, but anyway, it wasn’t to be.”