Autumn Tests took their toll but all is not lost, says Gaffney

DOWNHEARTED, yes. Desperate, no.

That was the mind-set in the Munster dressing-room in Castres after last night’s disappointing performance which leaves more or less everything hinging on whether they can recover in time for the return match at Thomond Park next Saturday.

Alan Gaffney will not be pulling any punches as a poor first-half display that left Munster trailing 13-3 at the break and unable to redress the imbalance despite improvement in the second-half.

The difference was David Bory’s 41st minute try, converted by Laurent Marticorena. It should have been prevented and Munster were unable to offer anything similar.

The try was on Gaffney’s mind a half-hour after the final whistle.

“Albouy was a player we identified as a threat before the game,” he said.

“We knew he was going to attack us and to allow him make that break from a restart and then to miss a couple of tackles down the left touchline was critical.

“So we went in 13-3 down and even then we felt confident. We came out and showed a fair bit in the first 20 minutes of the second-half.

“The election was to kick penalty goals. We got to 13-12 with 20 minutes to go and we were riding high. By conceding two penalties in the space of 30 seconds whilst on their line, we lost a lot of momentum.

“People were playing all over the shop, doing things individually and not doing things as a team.

“These are things that happen when you haven’t been together for a long period of time. That’s not an excuse and I think we’ll be a lot better next weekend. We were very poor for the try.

“Albouy is smart, a very skilful player, he looks for opportunities, and to allow him was not what we would have liked.

We didn’t attack them in the first-half and didn’t have the ball for much of the last 15 minutes. We had 20 minutes when I thought we did reasonably well. We made inroads out wide but couldn’t finish it off.

“We will pick ourselves up. I’m not desperate about what’s happened. I don’t know what people expect us to do. Do they think we were going to go out and put on this mammoth performance in Castres only six days after an international against Argentina? To think we’re going to get our patterns together after four weeks apart, it was never going to happen.”

Nobody revelled in the battle more than Jim Williams, who was replaced by Alan Quinlan on the hour.

“The bonus point is crucial and all is not lost,” he said. “It was disappointing, especially in the first-half when we couldn’t get our patterns together.

“We made mistakes, turning over ball, missing one tackle which ended up in them scoring, that’s all it takes at this level. We got ourselves back into the game and let ourselves down by not turning it into points. We need to score when we get into position, whether they’re tries or goals.”