O’Connor: Lack of leadership costly

Leinster reaction

O’Connor presided over a first Leinster side to lose twice in a season to Munster since 2008-09 and felt a “harsh” yellow card for wing Darragh Fanning in the 52nd minute had marked the beginning of the end for the visitors. They had trailed 18-6 at that point and were another 10 points in arrears by the time they were restored to their full complement.

“We just didn’t exert any pressure. We didn’t have any field position. We didn’t build any phases and they did incredibly well with the ball they had, to make us work hard, to make us tackle and at the end of the day I think we were out on our feet there at stages,” O’Connor said.

“The effort was fantastic. We had to make a lot of tackles and in the second half, down a man, I thought we coped pretty well in that period, but it was going to be hard, at 28-6, to come back into it, especially once Darragh got the yellow card.”

O’Connor accepted it looked like Munster had shown more desire, with the Reds coming out on top at the breakdown and in the aerial battles in particular.

“Definitely. That’s the perception. I think there’s a lot of luck in those situations as well and they earned the luck to be fair. But a lot of those things could have gone either way. At home you grow in those situations and away from home when you go behind on the scoreboard it has a pretty negative effect on the psyche and that’s probably where the most disappointment lies, that we didn’t make a statement in relation to when things started to turn. I suppose we’re down a few leaders out there in relation to the blokes that aren’t in that group – it’s something we’ll have to look at during the week.”

Leinster now have a Jan 3 league date with Ulster at the RDS and O’Connor insisted there was plenty of reason for optimism .

“We’ve got some growth in us. It’s starting to become very important, every game. We’ve ridden the storm a little bit and we’ll be in a lot better shape injury-wise, with significant bodies coming back into that group and we can be pretty happy in the sense that the guys who have had to play have got the important experience you can only get from playing. So by the time we get into the next European block we could have a pretty good panel to pick from and that will drive us on that little bit.”

Back rower Dominic Ryan will be a doubt for the Ulster clash having suffered a head injury in the first half at Thomond Park that will require him to go through return to play protocols but O’Connor is hoping to have a number of Ireland frontliners back in consideration. “You don’t like to lose, nobody likes to lose interpros to anybody, especially Munster. We’ll have to look at that and we’ll have to make sure that the next time we come up against them, hopefully in May, that we’re that little bit better.”