Mike Prendergast: Munster will be ready for return to South Africa

Munster will aim to channel their hurt from a painful Champions Cup exit into a URC play-off push as preparations begin immediately for next week's return trip to South Africa

WORK TO DO: Head coach Graham Rowntree and attack coach Mike Prendergast during a Munster Rugby squad training session at Thomond Park last week. Pic: Harry Murphy/Sportsfile

Munster will aim to channel their hurt from a painful Heineken Champions Cup exit into a BKT URC play-off push as preparations begin immediately for next week's return trip to South Africa.

Graham Rowntree’s squad touched down in Dublin Monday afternoon after a 19-hour trek home from Durban via Dubai that will have offered plenty of opportunity for reflection following the 50-35 drubbing they received at the hands of the Sharks on Saturday afternoon.

There will be a day's recovery from the journey that will have felt like the longest of hauls given the scars inflicted by a clinical South African side that punished Munster's errors in a disastrous third quarter by scoring four of their seven tries in the 17 minutes after half-time. So it will be back to training at the High Performance Centre in Limerick Wednesday with attack coach Mike Prendergast insisting the time will be right to "get back on the horse".

Munster will be airborne again next Monday ahead of a two-match tour to conclude their URC league schedule, heading first to Cape Town to play reigning champions the Stormers a week on Saturday before a quick return to Durban's Kings Park to seek vengeance and a little redemption against the Sharks seven days later on April 22.

Two tough challenges await as Munster go looking for their first victory against one of the four former Super Rugby big beasts on South African soil and following their home defeat to Glasgow Warriors last time out in the league on March 25 their hold on a place in the top eight play-off qualification places is far from guaranteed. Now six points adrift of fourth place there are just eight points separating Munster in fifth and Benetton in ninth with two rounds left to play.

Prendergast is under no illusions about the need to right the wrongs of last Saturday's Durban capitulation with the focus on tightening up the breakdown and improving discipline that offered easy access points for the Sharks looking to deploy their potent driving maul.

Speaking to the Irish Examiner before departing Durban, Prendergast said: "We've Tuesday off to recover from the travel etc and we're back into it on Wednesday.

"We won't change a huge amount in terms of our process and what we do but it's a case of there's a couple of little areas, well, a couple of big areas that we need to get better.

"We know playing two South African teams, the Stormers are second on the log, they're a very good side and they're both a similar enough type of team.

"So we know exactly what we're going to be facing and it's going to be a huge challenge for us, the coaching staff and the group but it's a good challenge and it's something to really look forward to, I have to say, coming back down here.

"The boys are hurting. The staff, we're hurting. It's a tough one to take, 50 points in the Champions Cup but we'll get back on the horse on Wednesday and train hard for the rest of this week and then back over here next week.

"When you look at it it's like a mini tournament for us and that's the reality."

Back-to-back defeats against Glasgow and the Sharks have come at a critical juncture in the season, potentially derailing the campaign on both fronts. Yet though the Champions Cup dream is over for another year, Prendergast is confident Munster's coaching staff has the buy-in from the squad to continue the transformation in both training methods and playing style that had reaped a strong run of form between November and March.

Would two defeats in a row at this important point in the season knock Munster off course, he was asked.

"No, I don't think so. I think the players, a lot of the boys spoke afterwards in the dressing room and we still 100 per cent believe in what we're doing and where we're going and we've shown that for three quarters of the season.

"We had a tough start to the season and the last two weeks have been tough but you don't become a bad team overnight and it's just been one of those performances that we'll have to look deeply into but we're very clear on what we need to go searching for.

"Unfortunately our discipline and our breakdown, it's such a pity because it's been something that's really stood to us all year. I suppose that was highlighted because that was an area the Sharks knew they had to slow us down, to stop us scoring tries, to get us at source and that's what they did.

"That’s what's so disappointing. Our breakdown has been the highest in the URC in terms of 0-2 seconds so we can play. You always talk about wanting to play quick, it's how you do it and generally that's done from the collision through to the breakdown. That's what allows you to play at speed and that's where we came unstuck."