Munster interim boss Costello: 'We weren't good enough tonight and didn't deserve to win it'

The result will mean an away draw for April’s knockout stages for the third season in a row but the interim boss had no complaints about Northampton’s victory.

SO CLOSE YET...: Munster’s Tadhg Beirne after the game. Pic: Billy Stickland

Ian Costello was left to rue a costly sin-binning as Munster were consigned to an away draw for the Champions Cup Round of 16 following their 34-32 defeat at Northampton Saints on Saturday.

Munster conceded 12 points, a Curtis Langdon maul try and hat-trick hero Tom Seabrook’s second try converted by Fin Smith after losing No.8 Gavin Coombes to a 40th minute yellow card at Franklin’s Gardens as the visitors were punished for an accumulation of penalties. 

Though interim head coach Costello saw his side come away from the English East Midlands with both losing and try bonus points, with doubles from wings Calvin Nash and Diarmuid Kilgallen, their failure to oust Saints from top spot in Pool 3 means they will have to settle for third place behind the winners of Sunday’s Saracens v Castres contest. 

That will mean an away draw for April’s knockout stages for the third season in a row but the interim boss had no complaints about Northampton’s victory.

“To be fair I think they deserved it, I think they capitalised really well on the yellow card, that period just before and after half-time,” Costello said.

“They scored 12 points, and we struggled to get our hands on the ball in the third quarter and we knew that was going to be really important.

“So I suppose it gave them a lead, we got close enough in the end but I think the bottom line is we weren't good enough tonight and didn't deserve to win it.” 

Having pointed to costly handling errors and losing the breakdown contest, Costello also circled back to the third quarter as the reason for defeat, with Saints full-back James Ramm bringing up his side’s try bonus point on 54 minutes after Coombes had returned to the field.

“We got a huge bounce off the bench last week (in the win over Saracens), bringing four subs on, we were looking for the same impact today. Probably got disrupted with Gavin getting sin-binned and we looked to get the four of them on with Gavin, looking for that swing in momentum. We didn’t quite get it.

“To be fair to them, I though the next 10 minutes they were really strong. We struggled to get our hands on the ball, when they’ve got that much ball they’re a very, very dangerous side.

“The big thing was that third period. They were really good ball in hand, we were inaccurate, gave away a couple of penalties that allowed them go deep into our line. They were lethal as we know off strikes. When you give them that much field position through our own inaccuracies that’s what’s going to happen.” 

Munster captain Tadhg Beirne echoed Costello’s disappointment.

“When we’re good, I think we’re very good. The problem is when we’re poor we’re being very poor,” Beirne said. “We need to be very good for a lot longer periods in the game and that’s the frustrating thing.

“There’s belief in this group with what we can do, it’s about putting the foot down and doing it ideally for 80 minutes. We’ll be hard to live with when we do do that. I think we showed snippets of that in today’s game.

“To still concede five tries, it’s pretty disappointing. What might look like a really good try to the average supporter, we’re looking at that as a terrible try to concede in terms of our systems. That’s the stuff that we’ll be frustrated with.”