Rarely one to use a paragraph where a short sentence can suffice, Peter O’Mahony was even more cryptic than usual when asked to comment about Munster’s loss to Saracens. Due to an impending coach trip to Heathrow for their tea-time flight home, he was restricted to almost a three whole minutes with the media.
Rather fittingly, when asked what he said to his team-mates in the immediate aftermath of one of the most soul-destroying European defeats Munster have ever experienced, O'Mahony responded: "There's not much you can say."
The rest of the season could now feel very hollow indeed, beginning Sunday for the strictly academic meeting at home to Sale Sharks. There will be a welcome reprieve then, before a couple of Pro12 games during the Six Nations; the importance of which will gradually seep into the organisation.
“We’ve got to bottle it up now and put in a performance next week,” O’Mahony said, almost through gritted teeth. “We’ve left our fans down who travelled, we’ve left our fans at home down, we’ve left our families down, we left ourselves down.
“We’ve got to have a good performance next week and the next few weeks in the Guinness Pro12. They’re non-negotiable, those performances.”
Coming to terms with the scale of this defeat, and how they scarcely fired a shot, was more difficult for him.
“Look, it’s just disappointing. You’re not going to compete with a team like Saracens if you’re going to carry on like that; knock-ons, missed calls, inaccuracies. You’re not going to compete.”
Great expectations
Like almost everyone else, O’Mahony had sensed a big performance at least, what with their European lives on the line.
“We’d a good week’s training; it went well on Thursday and guys knew what they were at, but it just didn’t come through today. There was no stage when we got a bit of momentum and built pressure. I don’t know if we’ve any excuses; I thought Saracens were very good.”
Playing so much of the match on the back foot and in their own territory made for a hellishly long 80 minutes.
“It’s hugely frustrating,” he said, “but every time we ended up there it was a result of our own mistakes. Every time we got up the field, we’d get a lineout or a scrum and we’d be penalised, have an inaccurate lineout, a turnover in midfield, a missed ruck. You’re just not going to compete.”
Nor did O’Mahoney see this as the inevitable consequence of Munster’s inconsistent performances this season.
"I don't know about that. Look, we'd always pride ourselves on, when we come away from home in the Heineken Cup, especially against the English and French teams, that we'll dig in for a performance, we find it from somewhere; we got to places where no one wants to go.
“I don’t think we did that today.”
Bonus pointless
The Saracens were understandably chuffed with themselves, although one sensed they were taken aback at the ease of winning this make-or-break encounter. In the cold light of day, they should also come to realise that they left a potentially costly bonus point behind them.
Chris Ashton echoed Mark McCall's frustration at not obtaining a bonus point. "Yeah, it was a little frustrating. They had good defence on their try line for 20-odd minutes in the second half, and maybe if we'd have scored then we would have carried on and got it.
“Disappointed not to get it, of course, winning with the scoreline we did. We would have wanted to have got the bonus point, but we won the game well and we’re happy with that. Now we’ve got another challenge next week.”
McCall said: “We talked during the week about delivering a big performance against a team who have got a history of raising their game and raising their level for games like this, and we wanted to be that team today. That’s going to give the team great belief as to what they’re capable of.”
Munster may have had a history of it before Saturday, but that’s where it remained; in the past.
