Varley: We must bring intensity to new level

Monday afternoon and Damian Varley was still feeling the pain — physical and emotional — from Saturday’s bruising RaboDirect Pro12 encounter with old rivals Leinster.

As Rob Penney revealed, several players had described the experience as tougher than Munster’s Heineken Cup quarter final victory over Harlequins, and you got the feeling Varley was amongst them.

“Yeah, bruising, some of us are feeling it,” said the hooker, “it was a very disappointing result especially because I thought we played really good rugby at times. However, we probably made some poor decisions and mistakes at key times in key areas and that let us down. Hats off to Leinster who worked hard when they got near the line, there was some great defence by us for a long while but they snuck over eventually.”