MUNSTER MAY HAVE scraped a win and gone back to the top of the Guinness PRO12, but director of rugby Rassie Erasmus was far from happy as the team headed home.
They got the victory they needed to move a point clear of Ospreys, but the performance would not have been enough to beat teams like the Ospreys, who they also play during the RBS Six Nations Championship window.
“It was not the best spectacle, the result was great but it was a grind,” he said after Ronan O’Mahony’s first half tries and two kicks from Tyler Bleyendaal had been enough to secure a one-point win in Edinburgh, who missed a late, long-range penalty to steal the match.
It was a proud Edinburgh team and we got lucky at the end, that kick could have gone over. This is a phase of the season were we have to get results. This time last year, Connacht won six out of six and went on to top the league.
“There are different blocks when we have to perform well. This is the one when the international guys are out and we have to show we have the squad to cope with having nine, 10 or 11 guys out on Test duty or injured. We have to gut it out in a period like this and against Edinburgh we did that – that’s the one positive.”
With 11 players missing, the former Springbok had to dig deep into Munster’s reserves, giving some young players the chance to prove themselves while still having some extra experience on the bench in case it was needed – as it turned out it was.
“Calvin Nash to get a run; Conor Oliver to get a start, there are good things. Then to get some older heads off the bench to clinch the game, there are positives but there is still a lot of work to be done,” Erasmus added.
“We always knew it was it was going to he a grind, we were never going to come to Edinburgh and beat them by 20 points. The next few games are all going to be like that, we might get some international guys back but we also have to build squad depth so that we go into Europe knowing what the young guys can do.”
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