Wallace: penalty madness played into Wilko’s hands
David Wallace certainly didn’t hide his disappointment as he summed up the atmosphere in the dressing room afterwards.
“Very sombre, very quiet,” he said. “Obviously there’s huge disappointment. We’ve a lot of history in this competition and we’re not used to going out at this stage, certainly in the last number of years. We’re very disappointed.”
In the end, the defeat was straightforward and Wallace was quick to admit where he felt Munster had gone astray.
“We gave away far more penalties and frees than we would have wanted. We’ll have to review the tapes. When you’re attacking or defending and just giving up easy yardage and easy points to a kicker like Jonny Wilkinson.
“We started well enough and got the three points but we started giving away penalty after penalty. At one stage it looked like we were coming back with penalties but they got that try with that chip over. It was a kick in the stones.”
As you might expect, words were said at halftime. A seventeen-point deficit was always going to be a tall order but, as comebacks go, Munster supporters have come to expect high drama from their team.
“In the second half we decided we needed to be more direct,” Wallace added. “We fronted around at the ruck before trying to spread it. At times we weren’t clinical and you can’t do that away from home.
“I suppose we finished on a bit of a high with the try but it’s scant consolation. It’s hard to think about the rest of the season at this stage.
“I think maybe in the years gone by we might have come over to France like at Perpignan and won away.
“It’s a very difficult thing to do and maybe people took for granted that we were going to come here and do a job but it’s very, very difficult to come over here, especially in a place like Toulon.
“We had chances in other games that we didn’t take. We were in the position we were in for what happened in other games.”
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