Rassie Erasmus looking to bounce back to winning ways.

It was very much a case if back to the drawing board after Glasgow exposed Munster’s shortcomings last weekend. However as Munster look to bounce back this week against Cardiff, Erasmus was clear about the areas that needed to improve this weekend.

“I think the only place where we got parity was the scrums. I think in the breakdown they totally smashed us, I think their defence was awesome. Listen we were outplayed on all areas except scrums and we can look for many excuses like in the recent stuff like that but when you perform like that you must keep your mouth shut and try and fix it for the next game”

Attention now turns to Cardiff and with their Lions contingent back and all named in the starting XV it has to look of a very strong Munster side.

On top of the three Lions, Erasmus has a fully fit JJ Hanrahan, who played for UL Bohs’ in their loss to Naas last weekend is also on the bench.

Erasmus admits he could have included Murray, O’Mahony or Stander earlier in the season but had the future of the team as a whole in his mind from round one

“We always knew it was going to be a gamble, tough against Glasgow away from home. The plan was always looking at Europe and thinking not to play your best fully fit team every single week but trying to rotate whilst not losing games so we didn’t get that right.”

Even with the Internationals to choose from, the South African understands how big of a challenge the blues will pose. Having narrowly lost out to Glasgow Warriors two weeks ago and beating Connacht at the Sportsground last weekend, the Blues are guaranteed to present Munster with a stern test.

Munster’s Lions contingent all make the starting XV on Saturday

Munster have named essentially the same XV for the past four weeks, which maybe cost them against a ruthless Glasgow side, but now that they have more experienced players available, as well as Eramus admitting that there will be some changes to personnel, some might feel it could cause a few issues changing the side around too much.

The departing coach, who is set to leave in December, was questioned how players coming back into the side, who haven’t featured too much this year will adapt and slot in. Erasmus concedes that there might be a few “hiccups” but isn’t worried about the transition looking ahead to Leinster and Europe

“Leinster also have this problem, not problem, but planning around how they’re going to manage it so you know it’s not something unique. If you think about it now it’s actually great to have three four five fresh players”

“I think the next two games it will be slotting in, but when we hit the euro game they shouldn’t be excused because they would have played two games going into a third game”

Trying to put the Glasgow defeat to the back of his mind the South African was looking at the positives going into his side’s round five clash and made the point that while the Irish Internationals have been introduced slowly back into the side, they haven’t been fully “utilised” yet and Saturday is the perfect opportunity to do so.

“There’s positives. Apart from the Lions players, we haven’t fully utilised Niall Scannell, David Kilcoyne starting or Zeebs starting, he’s only started one game, now JJ Hanrahan is back to full fitness as he played a club game this weekend. There’s a lot of positives”

Although Munster did lose the repeat of this fixture last year at Musgrave park, they do have a solid record against the Welsh side in recent times and will be looking to avenge that defeat in front of a home crowd last year.

With Munster at home in front of a Thomond Park crowd and the returning internationals set to feature, Munster should be taking the spoils here.