Winning league wouldn’t ease pain for coach
“It was 22-16 against a side who didn’t have one phase in our bottom 25-30 metres in the whole game, not one. That’s certainly difficult,”McGahan said. “The deeper you go into any competition, the more you invest emotionally, time-wise and energy. It is always difficult [to lose]. If we had got to the next step it would have been even more difficult, and if we got to a final it would have been even more difficult again.
“And it is not just the players. The playing group are deeply hurt,the management, the branch, thesupporters, the families, the wives, the kids. They all put up with a lot to get to that point and sacrifice the lot.
“It’s the whole mood of the place. When you have got expectation — which is a great credit to the players, they had expectation when they got to the quarter-finals from where we have come from this year — to have theexpectation taken away [then] the sense of hurt and loss and disappointment and frustration is even deeper, so there is no masking that.”
Asked if winning the RaboDirecttitle would be ample compensation, McGahan answered simply: “No.”
However, McGahan is still intent on finishing the season and his tenure with Munster on a high.
With James Coughlan (hand) ruled out, Keith Earls (ankle) and Paul O’Connell (knee) battling for fitness — although the skipper is confident of lining out against Glasgow at Musgrave Park tomorrow night — McGahan hopes playing together for a sustained period will help the team improve.
“That continuity of not being able to play together for a few weeks was certainly missing and you miss those split-second opportunities, support lines or presentation or that bit of knowledge that is so important, the small margins that turn maybe a half chance into a full chance.
“They are the little detailed things that this group of players, especially the younger players, have to experience to put a lot of fire in their belly.
“You need to have time to reflect and get over it personally. We didn’t come [together] as a group until Wednesday, so we have had thatopportunity.
“The game moves on, we need to train and we need to get on with it. It is not easy but it is what we are here to do and what we are about and how we react is very important.
“Where we finish, we probably don’t have a huge amount of control because of the nature of the game, but what we do know is that if we look after our own end we’ll be in the semi-finals.”
MUNSTER squad (v Warriors) — Backs: D Hurley, F Jones, J Murphy, D Barnes, L O’Dea, S Zebo, L Mafi, I Dineen, K Earls, S Deasy, I Keatley, R O’Gara, D Williams, T O’Leary, C Murray. Forwards: W du Preez, M Horan,S Archer, BJ Botha, M Sherry, D Varley, D Fogarty, J Ryan, B Holland, D O’Callaghan, P O’Connell, D Ryan, M O’Driscoll, P O’Mahony, T O’Mahony, D Wallace.
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