Munster Team Talk Thread - Beirne After Reading

This sounds made up. He's commented many times on how he's settled in NZ, he has no interest in coming back to any Irish province.

Thought it was the best I've seen Munster play in a long time, and a couple of small factors could have swung it in their favour very easily.

Firstly, the Rory Arnold decision to me was a slam dunk red card. The tackle was a combination of late, tipped him beyond the horizontal, landed him on his head/neck area and then drove his shoulder into him on the deck. It was a nasty tackle, out to hurt the player, and is the sort that should rightly have seen a red card.

Secondly, if Peter O'Mahony didn't leave the game when he did I think Munster win the match. He was absolutely immense again when he was out there, and I think he'd potentially have managed the end game or extra time a bit better than they did.

Felt for Ben Healy, but hopefully it'll be the making of him.

Casey has shown some great form for me in recent weeks too. Looks rejuvenated. To me, he's playing an up-tempo game plan (similar to what JGP is doing for Leinster) that best suits his skillset, and is reminiscent of how he played on that 20's GS winning team. He's not trying to be Conor Murray. It's really encouraging to see his development too.

Kendellen is a serious player, and Ahern has to tour in the summer. Weirdly, even though it cost them this time around, some of those injuries might be a benefit for Munster long term because of the game time and development opportunities it's afforded some of these young forwards.

Listening to Quinny on off the ball and he did put things into context a bit, Munster missing Kilcoyne, Beirne, Snyman, Conway and Coombes without having the depth of a team like Toulouse changes the profile of the game entirely. When Ireland lost O'Connell, Sexton, O'Brien, O'Mahony before the Argentina game in the 2015 RWC I often felt that the significance of that was lost in terms of how the game was discussed posthumously.

I don't think any more effort was required to win at the weekend but a bit more savvy would have gone a long way when Toulouse we're looking ropey. I'm not mad on the talk about it being a heroic loss, yes - it was a massive and memorable game and the atmosphere outshone any of the other weekends fixtures, but Munster could have won that and a lack of patience in extra time was the big difference in that regards.

Am I right in saying that's the first time a game has gone to kicks since Cardiff Leicester? The new format is fairer but possibly less interesting.