Left with a lingering sense of what might have been

Clermont Auvergne 16 Munster 10

The sun was setting, not just on the Mediterranean coast but on the province’s season and maybe a career or two but amid the desolation in Montpellier as Heineken Cup favourites Clermont were pushed to the limit by a Munster outfit deemed a pale imitation of its predecessors, there can only be positives to be taken from this semi-final experience.

For 80 minutes the superstars of French rugby were made to fight tooth and nail to keep their ambitions of a Top 14-European double alive by a Munster side written off by the bookmakers as 6/1 outsiders in a two-horse race.