“Some of the guys are still struggling” – Munster hurting after Leinster loss

Munster backs coach Stephen Larkham has explained that Munster are still hurting badly after Saturday’s devestating defeat to Leinster at the RDS.

Leinster once again got the better of the men in red with a 16-6 win and Munster must now prepare for a massive Champions Cup clash against Toulouse while still carrying such disappointment.

“We want to be mentally and physically refreshed on Saturday as opposed to right now,” said Larkham this afternoon.

“I think some of the guys are still struggling, some of the guys are just about over it. It’s tough, we’ve had a couple of games against Leinster now that haven’t gone our way, they’ve been close games, we’ve been probably the team that have pushed Leinster more than anybody else in the big games with full squads out there.

“It hurt, and we’re still picking up our mental state at the moment. It’s fair to say we’re not quite there, we’re not ready to play a game this afternoon or tonight, but it’s expected that by the end of the week we’ll build nicely.

“We’ve looked at our fundamentals, we’ve focused on those in the meetings this morning, we want to make sure that we’re back to those this weekend,” he said.

“It’s tough. Any final that you lose is tough, I guess the beauty of the current situation we’re in is that we’ve got a massive game this weekend, it’s another final this weekend effectively. We have to win this to keep going in Europe.

“We put full focus into the game last week, and it was very tough to take, from a staffing point of view and a player’s point of view. We gave then a couple of days off, we’ve come back in for the first day today, and we’re moving forward. That’s the beauty of where we’re at right now, we have something to focus on. If we didn’t have that, it would be hurting for a lot longer,” he added.

Munster take on Toulouse at Thomond Park this Saturday afternoon (3pm KO, BT Sport 3)