Munster’s Graham Rowntree says defeat against Leinster was hard to accept

Munster head coach Graham Rowntree said this latest defeat to Leinster was hard to accept as Leo Cullen’s men scored twice in this Christmas cracker from set moves that his men had trained hard to prevent.

But while Munster had prepped themselves to deal with the various Leinster drives off tapped penalties, when it came to the execution they were found wanting and fell to their sixth defeat in 10 games in this season’s URC and a fourth successive home loss to arch rivals Leinster.

And to compound matters, the two Leinster tries in four minutes which saw them edge this clash 20-19 came when Munster had an extra man after No. 8 Max Deegan was binned and Rowntree’s men opened up a 17-6 with a penalty try after 43 minutes.

[ Leinster edge Munster in superb URC battle at Thomond Park ]

Leinster responded by hooker Dan Sheehan slipping a neat pass out the back for Scott Penny to score off a tapped effort and then minutes later as Munster geared up for another possible training ground, the league leaders went back to basics and Sheehan bulldozed over.

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“We spoke about it a lot, they have an armoury of quick-tap moves,” said Rowntree. “We spoke about it, and previewed it in the week, and trained it, but we have to be better. In the white-hot heat of the battle we have to be better than that.

“We have to be better in every game, and particularly against a classy team like that. There are lots of positives, but when you lose a game like that you focus on the negatives.”

The loss by a full-strength Munster outfit against a Leinster team who rested about half their frontliners, follows a good spell in the campaign for Rowntree’s men built up from the 28-14 win over a South Africa XV at Páirc Uí Chaoimh in November and they will now need to regroup for a trip to Belfast next Sunday.

“We’ve got a short turnaround now. We’re in Belfast, in six days’ time. We’ll have to have a look at the game. Sort out what we can and get on with it.

“Without having a load of territory in that first half we were ahead, and then in the third quarter we worked hard for a penalty try, they had a guy in the bin and we concede two soft tries. We can’t do that, we just can’t do that.

“We lost our way towards the end of our way there against a good team, whoever they seem to put on the field. There’s a lot of familiar faces in that Leinster team, whoever they field, they’re a class team. But the most disappointing thing for me was how we dealt with that time after the penalty try, conceding two soft tries.”

“There are lots of positives, but when you lose a game like that you focus on the negatives,” added Rowntree.

Meanwhile, Leinster captain Garry Ringrose praised his pack for the way they stepped up to twice score when they had a man in the bin to carve out another win in front of 25,600 at Thomond Park.

“Moments like that can happen and it can galvanise you and credit to our forwards stepping up and kicking on.

“I think the scoreboard speaks for itself in terms of how tight it was. The game was on a knife-edge and it was decided by the smallest of margins and thankfully we fell on the right side of that,” said Ringrose.