Toulon Post Match Reaction
28th April 2014 By Munster Rugby
Following a rest day, the Munster squad will regroup tomorrow in preparation for Saturday evening’s RaboDirect PRO12 fixture away to Edinburgh.
Conor Murray and James Downey were the only Munster players to require treatment in the aftermath of a physical and bruising encounter against Toulon on Sunday afternoon. Downey and Murray both receiving stitches to the face, the scrum half’s injury the consequence of a stamp from Toulon’s Juan Fernandez Lobbe for which he was yellow carded.
All players will undergo full reviews from the Munster medical staff once they return to their training centres tomorrow morning in a week which sees a quick turnaround between matches. Having arrived back from Marseille late last night the Munster squad will fly to Edinburgh on Friday in time for Saturday evening’s league encounter in Meggetland.
Captain against Toulon, Damien Varley yesterday answered questions about Munster’s decision to kick for the corner rather than for the posts to make it a two point game with 8 minutes to go:
“It was a collective decision, we felt that we were really on top, our set-piece didn’t get going as much as we wanted in the first half and we felt that we’d get a maul together and walk them over. Any time we got a maul before they were giving away penalties and we felt we could walk them over. We back the decision 100 per cent but again it was a case of unforced errors.”
Varley was impressed with the physicality Munster brought to the game:
“I think we probably expected a little more physicality from them, we stopped a lot of their poaching abilities, we stopped Armitage and Bastareud
“I certainly felt we were physically on top but it wasn’t our physicality that lost it, it was our handling and our unforced errors and certainly our discipline in the first half.”
Yesterday’s loss was Head Coach Rob Penney’s final Heineken Cup game in charge of Munster and he believes this team will return to the knock out stages again:
"The two experiences I've had at semi-final time, I've left hollow," the Munster coach said.
"Both occasions I believe we could have won and I suppose it's just as the squad matures a bit … I don't think there was a belief issue today. Last year it was a little bit of a belief issue, but this year I don't believe so.
"I thought we didn't get a couple of early decisions, momentum swung and we're chasing our tail a little bit all the way through. And on top of that were the unforced errors we were making… it just wasn't to be.
"The learnings from that are we've just got to be more patient, build pressure, because we've shown time and time again that this team's very capable and it will grow and it will learn and it will be here again."
While Simon Zebo spoke about Munster’s slow start and the need to drive on from here:
“We had said we’d try to lay down a marker in the opening 20 minutes, make a statement. But our error and penalty count was too high in the first half. It cost us in the end.
“Paul said at half-time it was just a half of our mistakes and them kicking their points. It was a very strange half and the second half, when we held on to the ball, put pressure on them, we got chances and got penalties. But it was just too much of a mountain to climb.”
"We've been here before and we can't keep doing this to ourselves every year. We want to be competing for silverware and semi-finals aren't good enough at Munster,"
"We had chances to win last year and didn't take them and it is the same this year. We need to make sure we have a fighting chance next year."
Munster return to action away to Edinburgh on Saturday evening in the RaboDirect PRO12, KO 17:00.
