Penney: Yellow card led to us falling short

Munster head coach Rob Penney admitted his side’s failure to engineer a winning score in the closing minutes was the price they had paid for keeping Ulster at bay with a man down for 10 minutes of the second half.

Munster lost their first RaboDirect Pro12 game of the season at Ravenhill, just failing to work a game-winning drop-goal into the script after a 23-phase run of possession with time up.

It meant Penney lost his first game as new Munster head coach but he was not at all bitter in defeat, even regarding the 56th-minute yellow card awarded to flanker Sean Dougall for killing the ball at a ruck. A man down, Munster emerged from the 10-minute sin-binning three points to the good but the defensive effort eventually took its toll.