Skipper bids to move on

Paul O’Connell can’t remember a more disturbing week in his sporting life than this one after Munster’s dramatic exit from the Heineken Cup at Thomond Park.

Six days on, O’Connell was still trying to come to terms with the disappointment and anguish, trying desperately not to turn the game against Ulster over and over in his mind. But it was impossible to ignore, though. The fact he was unable to train alongside his beleaguered colleagues on Wednesday and is ruled out of tonight’s RaboDirect Pro12 clash with Glasgow added to the pain.

“Yes, I’m very frustrated and disappointed, I was very frustrated and disappointed walking off the pitch and I am even more so now, having watched it,” he said.

“I mean the amount of possession we had, the amount of territory, and to have only scored what we did and to allow them score what they did, was just incredible.

“I’ve never been involved in a game like it before. I said it after the game to have gone 19-0 down at home in a European Cup match, I don’t think it has ever happened to me or us before and it is very disappointing, I think they were in our 22 once in the game and they knocked over their penalties really well from their half, we just didn’t create enough with the possession we had.

“In terms of disappointment it’s up there with anything I’ve had now really. Normally I move on fairly quickly although things may be on the back of my mind. I’m good at getting back going, getting back training and moving on to the next thing but this has been a slow week for me. I suppose I have a bit of a knee injury as well which has held me back, I wasn’t able to train yesterday [Wednesday] which is frustrating when you can’t do that but in terms of losses, it’s up there with anything I’ve experienced.”

He’s hoping the lack of continuity he blamed for part of Munster’s problems won’t come back to haunt the squad tonight in Cork. “We were on a good run when we played Northampton [in the Heineken Cup] and it has been for me 11 weeks since I was involved with the team again from that game. Confidence was high and we were beginning to see the things we were trying to do come out from the training pitch.

“I suppose to go from that to not playing together as a team for 11 weeks made it tough. In terms of creating stuff we just didn’t have enough time together.

“Now we just have to maintain that against Glasgow. We have three games left and then hopefully we can have four games, five games left and get that buzz going that we had up to the end of the knockout stages in Europe and get that kind of fluidity to our game we had when we spent a lot of time together after Christmas. If we can get that and combine it with those guys coming through from the A team, we know we will be in a good place.”