Tadhg Beirne: Munster shot themselves in the foot against Exeter 

The visitors to a windy Sandy Park gave themselves a mountain to climb in the second half

Tadhg Beirne deflated after Munster's loss to Exeter. Pic: Paul Phelan/Sportsfile

Tadhg Beirne admits that Munster effectively shot themselves in the foot in the first-half of their Challenge Cup defeat to Exeter Chiefs.

The English PREM side, who played the first 40 minutes with a strong wind at their backs, scored four converted tries and a penalty to race into a 31-0 half-time lead and even 21 unanswered points in reply on the restart never added up to a threatened comeback.

“It’s probably the same story we’ve been having throughout the year. It’s inaccuracy around some of our set-piece, accuracy out the back with dropped balls. In fairness to Exeter they were clinical. Intercept, drop ball, try. Drop ball out wide, try.

“Defensively, we felt reasonably comfortable out there when they were going through the phases but in terms of shooting ourselves in the foot, if you watch that first half you’ll see how to do it."

Head coach Clayton McMillan could only agree that the visitors had left themselves with far too much work to do.

“Against any team in the world, if you’re down 31 points it’s going to be hard to come back. First 13 minutes in the first-half, defensively we were really robust, held out Exeter for a long period of time. Showed a bit of bottle. Got down their end but didn’t capitalise on the one or two little sniffs we had to create some pressure on them.

“Then we were back in our defensive territory and that just accumulated pressure. It resulted in points for them.

“We probably had moments where we could have managed the game a little bit better, used short sides, started looking for offloads. We were passing out the back when we didn’t have anything on… The contestable kicking game could have been our friend. We didn’t manage the game. They were good enough to exploit our weaknesses in the first-half.” Tadhg Beirne, who scored on of Munster’s three tries in this round of 16 tie, was left to lament inaccuracies which, he said, have been all too familiar a story in a season that is now dependent on a top eight URC spot to clinch Champions Cup rugby next season.

Two of Exeter’s tries came from intercepts, and the other pair were sourced far too easily and after far too few phases with Munster’s inability to execute when in possession another contributing problem to that first-half meltdown.

Ther approach in that half was curious. Having won the toss they opted to play into the wind but they overplayed the ball time and again and, with Exeter dominating the contact at that point, the result was that they were all too often under pressure.

The decision after the toss was based on the thinking that they would be fresh at the opening and in a position to keep the score low before turning around with the elements in their favour. Best laid plans and all that.

“We just coughed up the ball to them and they were clinical in fairness to them,” said Beirne.

“And then second-half, we talked about the first five minutes. I thought we were very good in the first five minutes, but then it was the same story, wasn't it? We'd ample opportunities inside their 22, but dropped balls, just the same kind of mistakes that we've probably been coughing up throughout the season.

“So that's probably the frustrating part because we still put ourselves in a position to claw back at the score at the scoreboard, but it was a big mountain to climb and had it been a bit less on the scoreboard, it could have been a different conversation today.”