Time for Munster to embrace a new Challenge after Castres low

“Yeah, [the mood is] not great, but things like this happen in sport, and if you think it is all going to be linear and all good, sunshine and rainbows, you’re in the wrong sport,” said Diarmuid Barron.

NEW CHALLENGE: Munster's Diarmuid Barron in the dressing room. Pic: ©INPHO/Dan Sheridan

Bits of brick have been chipped off it for over a decade now, and a structural engineer might go as far as to question its basic integrity, but the Champions Cup remains the foundation stone on which the provinces’ seasons still stand.

Leinster are obsessed with winning it, Connacht and Ulster are desperate to get back into it. Now Munster, the club that did more than any other to embed the tournament into the national consciousness, find themselves on the outside looking in.