‘We didn’t take our opportunities’ – Graham Rowntree rues missed chances in Munster’s URC semi-final loss to Glasgow

Having worked so hard to finish top of the regular season table and earned the home comforts that came with that, Munster missed out on hosting next week’s final in Limerick.

Instead, Glasgow will take on the Bulls in South Africa, following a pair of damaging defeats for Munster and Leinster. Munster will now say farewell to Simon Zebo, RG Snyman, Antoine Frisch and Joey Carbery – all of whom will not be playing in Munster red next season.

“It’s going to take a while for that to sink in,” Rowntree said.

“Hugely frustrating, you get yourself in a position, home semi-final and then the game got away from us.

“It’s about taking opportunities, using the possession and territory that we had. We didn’t take our opportunities.

“They got the tries that they did without having to do much, to be honest with you, it was just the freak nature of the tries and then we tried a bit too hard near the try-line.

“Credit to them, they were tenacious tonight, were Glasgow. I just said to the group there, we are saying goodbye to some big names who deserve better if I am honest with you.

“It will take a while to sink in. I am proud of how we finished the season, where we got to and the style of play.

“As I say, you earn yourself a home semi and it’s just frustrating, hugely frustrating.”

Asked about his side’s lack of composure after putting themselves in so many good field positions, Rowntree responded:

“Yeah, that’s a composure piece with the players. We speak about one more ruck rather than an offload, which is brilliant if it comes off, you go ‘What a cracking offload!’ But we were just a bit guilty of forcing things a bit too much.”

Munster captain Tadhg Beirne echoed his head coach’s sentiments, as his all-action performance did not deserve to be part of a losing side.

As ever, Beirne was immense, but the lock’s tireless efforts were in vain, as Munster followed Leinster in being knocked out of the URC semi-finals.

“You can’t fault the effort of any of the lads, we stuck in it, were in it right to end,” Beirne said.

“You’ve got to give credit to Glasgow, they defended unbelievably well.

“Similar to last week, we just didn’t take our chances when we got inside the 22, we had a few opportunities there to come away with some points and unfortunately we didn’t, we gave away penalties or knock-ons or just silly errors which probably crept into our game a little bit over the last couple of weeks unfortunately and as Wig (Rowntree) said we were probably trying too hard and just needed to take a moment and slow the ball down a touch to get back into our shape and go from there.

“But you can’t fault Glasgow’s effort because they defended unbelievably well and they stopped us. Some teams haven’t been able to stop us from that far out but they were, so credit to them.”