Trailing by just three points at the half, a third-quarter onslaught from the hosts put the game to bed in Durban.
Munster’s Champions Cup campaign came to an end on Saturday afternoon as they were outplayed by a brilliant Sharks team in Durban.
Trailing by just three points at the half, a third-quarter onslaught from the hosts put the game to bed with Munster offering a couple of tries in response down the stretch with the result out of question.
Reflecting on the 50-35 loss, Munster Head Coach Graham Rowntree said his side need to learn from the defeat.
“Im hugely disappointed as you can imagine. It’s a three-point game at half time, quickly got away from us two more tries and then the game got even looser and we’re chasing the game. We can score tries, as a team we’ve proven that. I’ve just said it to the lads now, we’re back down here in three weeks, we’ve got a taste of what this is coming to this club, this town and we’ll go back and analyze the game, see where we’re going to be better.
“We’ve got to be better at that (the breakdown) coming down in three weeks time, they were the key moments in the game where we weren’t slow to get there but we didn’t stay in there and then we got the loose trying to chase the game.”
In the South African heat, Munster gave as good as they got in the first half with both sides crossing for a pair of tries that left it 17-14 in favour of the hosts.
But the game quickly slipped away from the Irish province but Rowntree isn’t laying any blame at the hands of the weather conditions.
“It’s certainly a challenge, we’re not used to this weather but you know towards the end of the game, we’re chasing the game, we’re scoring tries.
“I was pleased with our energy, it wasn’t a question of energy or effort, technically tactically we’ve got to be better. We’ll go back and look at that third quarter of the game because things got away from us straight after the two more tries.”
Munster now have a rest week with the Champions Cup quarter finals pencilled in for the coming weekend. They will return home but will be back in South Africa for the final pair of URC rounds later this month with Rowntree stressing the need to learn and grow from the Durban experience with all the Munster eggs now in the URC basket.
“We’re a tight group, a tight group, we’ll get back we’ll go back to Limerick, lick our wounds pull the game apart and look at the things that we can be better at because you’ve got to move forward. We’re back down here in the URC, gotta learn from it and move forward.”