SATURDAY’S SEMI-FINAL defeat brought a battering in multiple forms for Munster.
CJ Stander’s late try (and a little profligacy on Saracens’ part) eased some of the scoreboard pain in the 26 – 10 defeat, but the 80 minutes was littered with mental and physical hammer blows.
“CJ, it was his first game back today, he was supposed to play 45-50 minutes,” said Rassie Erasmus as he surveyed the wreckage.
“But Tommy (O’Donnell) got injured, then Peter (O’Mahony) went off with concussion and at the same time Jean Deysel broke his ribs, or fractured his ribs…”
The only soothing salve for the emotional lows of Munster’s eighth European Cup semi-final loss is the positivity to be mined from their presence at this level and the promise of further improvements to come with Erasmus at the helm.
“Rassie told us he was staying on so the speculation wasn’t really in our camp,” said Niall Scannell.
His forward planning is unbelievable, you know, sometimes I wonder if he has a crystal ball.
“We were watching Northampton-Saracens last week and Northampton were doing really well (leading 25 – 12) and he said: ’60 minutes now, this is where Saracens are going to turn the screw’. It was like he’d seen the future. That’s exactly what they did (Saracens won 25 – 27). We were prepared for that today, but they still did it and we found it hard to counteract.”
“I can’t speak highly enough of himself and Jacques (Nienaber) and then you’re looking at Jerry Flannery and Felix Jones, they just epitomise what Munster is about. They’re two fellas who, on the field, were warriors and they drive the standards now.”
That culture has made this an extraordinary season for Munster. But after dropping out of Europe, nothing short of a winners’ medal in domestic competition will make this a successful campaign by their own standards.
They’re in a perfect position to make that happen. A home semi-final is all but in the bag with just Treviso and Connacht left to face before the knock-out stage.
“It’s everything,” says Scannell.
“You’re trying to keep the two of them alive for the last few weeks, but it’s gone now and we want silverware so badly. As a club we need silverware and we love this competition and the Pro12.
We’re out of this now so we have to be harsh to ourselves today and say they were the better team and we’ve got to go again. We have to go again because we don’t want to come out of this season with nothing.
“There’s been a massive turnaround from us from last season, we’ve worked so hard and I think to come away with nothing would be very tough to take.”
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