Munster head coach Clayton McMillan: 'We could have been a lot better'

Skipper and try scorer Tadhg Beirne shared his boss’s assessment of the Munster performance.

PÁIRC STRIFE: Munster's Head Coach Clayton McMillan ahead of the match. Pic: ©INPHO/Billy Stickland

Clayton McMillan had mixed views of Munster’s return to winning ways as they overcame Gloucester late on for a bonus-point 31-3 Champions Cup pool win at SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh in Cork on Saturday.

The Munster head coach saw a much-changed matchday squad rebound from back-to-back defeats across the URC and Europe to get their Champions Cup Pool 2 campaign back on track with a five tries to nil success over a weakened Gloucester side missing star players including Test half-backs Ross Byrne and Tomos Williams and club captain and flanker Lewis Ludlow.

It was a much-needed win in front of 36,208 supporters, Munster’s biggest European gate in their home province, and a welcome counterpoint to the previous Saturday’s 40-14 hammering at Bath.

Yet the New Zealander was also disappointed by his side’s failure to capitalise on all the opportunities they created in the Leeside rain.

Munster had only been 12-3 up, thanks to tries from Dan Kelly and Mike Haley, heading into the final quarter before a late salvo from replacements Ruadhan Quinn and Tom Farrell brought up the try bonus point and captain Tadhg Beirne added a fifth three minutes from time as the home side made hay with Gloucester a man down for the second time in the game due to yellow cards.

“To be fair, we never expected it to be easy, but I think we're grateful for the win,” McMillan said.

“We’re happy to get ourselves on the (Pool 2) scoreboard in terms of the European Cup stuff, but I think we'll probably wake up in the morning or even now and know that we could have been a lot better."

The Munster boss added that victory alone was not enough for him, even in light of the defeats, at home to URC leaders the Stormers, and then in their Pool 2 opener at Bath, and he suggested his players had been trying just a little too hard in their first competitive match at the home of Cork GAA.

“I still think we’ve got a long way to go in terms of reaching that level of consistency that you need to have to really be contenders at the end of the day.

“But there were still lots of positives. I think my overriding sense would be that sometimes your will to do something so well becomes the reason it doesn't.

“And, you know, there's a lot of care in the team and there's a lot of willingness to want to step up and do something well for the team, but I just feel like we forced a lot today instead of just letting the game come to us.”

McMillan added: “We felt there's a real sickness in the gut for what we didn't produce last week.

“But the only way you can make yourself feel better is to come out and put in a performance that you can be proud of. And there were lots of things that actually went well today.

“When we did get it right, when our skill execution was here, when our patience was here, we looked good. We’ve just got to build more of those moments.

“I think we're probably in the habit of stacking a couple of negatives before we get a positive, and we need it to be the other way around.”

Skipper and try scorer Beirne shared his boss’s assessment of the Munster performance.

“I think we managed the game quite well in terms of the area of the field, particularly in the first half,” the Ireland and Lions star said. “We knew it was going to be a battle into that wind.

“Credit to the lads, maybe the first five or 10 minutes, we weren't really there but we found our way then and managed the game pretty well and finished the first half well.

“So, look, the positive is we got the five points today and that was the target, and we got the job done.

“But we left a lot of points out there and that's the part that would be a bit frustrating for us in terms of our conversion. We weren't very clinical, and we had the opportunity to be.

“The game could have been over a lot earlier than it was. That's what we'll be looking at to improve on. But we kept them scoreless, other than the three points, so that's a big positive too.”