Ian Costello: 'Technically, there were just a few things in terms of accuracy that cost us'

IMPROVED PERFORMANCE: Munster director of rugby Ian Costello was happy with the improved performance but accuracy at key times cost them.

Munster almost gatecrashed the Glasgow Warriors remembrance party, but the young team ultimately came up short by the tiniest of margins. No wonder Ian Costello, the director of rugby, was struggling to deal with his mixed emotions.

"Absolutely gutted," was his first reaction. Then he took a more philosophical turn. "It's one of those ones. When we look back, I think we'll be very satisfied with the effort, the physicality, the reaction after the previous game. Technically, there were just a few things in terms of accuracy that cost us. A bit more accurate and I think we'd have got the result."

The evening had started with a massive local celebration of the day 10 years ago when Glasgow had beaten Munster to win the Pro12, as the competition was then branded. Safe to say, the festivities did nothing to lower the Irish ambitions to be party poopers.

And they came so close. In the lead until four minutes from time, and even after losing their 11-point advantage in the final quarter, did everything they could to rescue at least a draw.

"There were a lot of elements for our game that were really strong," Costello pointed out. "Our set piece was good, our defence was outstanding at times and went through some really deep sets.

"Same about our attack; when we kept the ball, we looked dangerous. But because they're such a good side you have to be used to finishing the job and and we didn't. We just didn't quite finish the job.

"Look, it's a massively improved performance from from our last outing at home – we were very, very disappointed with that. It was way below the standards we set for ourselves.

"We looked for a reaction and we got one, especially in terms of work rate and physicality. At times, accuracy let us down plus a couple of decisions where we would have taken different options if we had our time over again."

Taking positives from Munster's attacking verve, in particular the quality of their offloading game, and the determination of their defence and add the senior players coming back into the squad for next week's historic clash with Connacht at MacHale Park and they are in a much happier place than they were going into the match on the back of losing to Edinburgh.

"We move onto a really exciting game next week, a derby game in a new venue where we haven't played before, and it's a must win game now," Costello added.

"The league is really, really competitive, which is what you want. I think the competitor for top eight places will go right down to the wire. Every game is important, so we just look at one at a time.

"We probably have an extra seven or eight players to select from next week, which is great. It drives competition in the squad. It makes selection more difficult and hopefully raise the performance across the board. Those guys will have had a week off so hopefully they'll come back in fresh and really add to the to the squad looking to and build on some elements in that performance in Glasgow.

"The team that played this game could have won. There just a few decisions we'll look back on and say we could have done better."