AS THE MUNSTER COACH FINISHED speaking to the media in the Kingspan Stadium last night, darkness fell. You couldn’t have made it up. His final words of his era as head coach were accompanied by the lights going off in the press room.
And that was that, the end of a season that should have been better and for a long time looked like it might be. They had their moments, the win over Exeter, the two previous wins over Ulster, the atmosphere generated in the Aviva against Toulouse.
But once again they end a season without a trophy. Semi-finals used to be their ceiling. Now it is quarter-finals.
“Utterly disappointing,” said Johann van Graan of Munster’s performance in Belfast. “For us as a group, that wasn’t good enough.”
It certainly wasn’t. They lost by five tries to three, by 36 points to 17. More than that, they never looked like winning.
“Two main things stood out,” said van Graan, “discipline-wise we just gave Ulster access. We had more than enough opportunities and just couldn’t finish, even though we scored three tries.
“We’ve got to own that as a group, we came here to win and we were a long way short tonight.
“From a team perspective, the last two games (defeats to Leinster and then last night’s loss to Ulster) weren’t good enough. We’ll have to do our end of season review, own that as a group and then move forward.”
The South African will be moving to Bath after five years in this post taking his defence coach, JP Ferreira, with him. Stephen Larkham will also be leaving the club, likewise Damien DeAllende, John Ryan and Chris Cloete. So, as farewell bashes go, this one was a damp squib.
“I could say we could have been closer, I could also say we could have conceded one or two more so factually for us as a group it wasn’t good enough.”
On reflection, their season ended a month ago, when they lost that Champions Cup quarter-final in such heartbreaking fashion to Toulouse. Ever since that penalty shoot-out loss they have been flat. A lengthening injury list didn’t help but their wounds weren’t just physical.
“Toulouse was a massive moment in our season, looking back from a season point of view we were very happy with what we achieved that day in Dublin.
“Obviously, we didn’t win the game, but the last two performances – from a club point of view – haven’t been good enough.
“That’s the disappointing thing, to finish off the season like this. That’s sport, we as a group have to own it. We’ve got to face up to this as a group in terms of the supporters who came here, at home – they’ve been phenomenal all season.
“For Munster Rugby that performance last night just wasn’t good enough.
“The frustrating thing tonight is we had opportunities, a big moment on the charge down from Gavin Coombes just after half-time and then twice in the game we didn’t get a try and they struck back straight away.
“So we’ll reflect on the game first before I look back on my time here.”
He said there were no excuses for the defeat, that training had been good, but that their discipline was high. Finally, he gave a message to the Munster fans.
“As a group we have got to own it and take accountability for that performance. From a Munster point of view it’s very frustrating that our next game will only be in September so we as a group have got to take it until the next game.
“Look, our fans have been phenomenal. They stick with us through thick and thin but if we perform like that it’s not good enough.”
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