RUGBY: GERRY THORNLEYgets the contrasting reactions from a deflated David Wallace, who emerged from a 'very sombre and very quiet dressingroom', and a jubilant Toulon coach Philippe Saint-André after his side beat the monster of the competition at the Stade Mayol Stadium yesterday

ONE CAN only imagine the feeling of desolation in the Munster dressingroom as their golden generation came to terms with a first failure in 13 years to keep their interest in the Heineken Cup extended beyond January and the Six Nations.

David Wallace, one of those who has soldiered through them all, admitted he had emerged from “a very sombre and very quiet” away dressingroom.

“Obviously there’s huge disappointment. We’ve a lot of history in this competition and we’re not used to going out at this stage in the last long number of years.”

Unusually, though as it did in the endgame away to the Ospreys, panic and ill-discipline crept into Munster’s performance, something Wallace accepted.

“We certainly gave away far more penalties and frees than we would have wanted. It’s very hard to win games away from home if you’re giving up easy yardage and easy points with a kicker like Jonny Wilkinson.

“We started well enough and we were attacking and got three points, but then we started giving away penalties and penalties.

“At one stage it looked like we were coming back with penalties, but they got that try from the little chip over and it was a kick in the stones really.”

Regrets?

They’ll have plenty.

Although some of their breakdown and restart work was good, Munster also made little headway with their repeated attempts to put width on the ball in their territory, especially in the first half.

“In the second half we decided we needed to be more direct and needed to go at them around the ruck and up front a lot more before we tried to spread it.

“We picked up the tempo a lot of the time, but at times we weren’t clinical and it’s just very difficult to play away from home like that.”

Unsurprisingly, Wallace found it difficult to imagine what it will be like for Munster for the remainder of the season.

“I suppose it’s hard to think of the rest of the season at this stage. We’re in the Magners League as well and that’s very important to us too, and the season still has a lot of focus.”

Can Munster come back from this?

“That’s the nature of sport,” said Wallace a tad wearily. “You’re questioned when things go wrong and you have to look at yourselves and the way you do things, and hopefully we’ll come back stronger.”

Yesterday’s failure, in a way, highlighted the scale of Munster’s achievement over the previous dozen years.

“Maybe in years gone by we might have gone away to France and won in places like Perpignan when people had written us off, but it’s a very difficult thing to do, and maybe people took it a bit for granted that we were going to come here and do a job. But it’s very, very difficult to come here, especially, and play a side like Toulon.”

In that sense, failure to qualify had been caused as much, if not more so, by losing the more winnable matches in London Irish and Ospreys.

“Yeah, obviously they all add up, and there would have been chances in other games that we didn’t take.

“You don’t just review today, we’re in this position today because of what happened in other games.”

For Philippe Saint-André, the Toulon coach, what made yesterday’s achievement all the more meaningful was that, as he put it, they beat both Munster and a monster in terms of European rugby.

“To be qualified after five games is amazing. It’s just a game of rugby and it’s just a quarter-final, but for the club, the area and the passion in this area, I am very proud of my players.

“I think we played so well for the first 60 minutes, we matched Munster in each area. I’m very, very proud of the guys.

“I think we performed very well, along with the home game against London Irish, our best performance.”

“It’s fantastic for my guys to show we can beat the best in Europe and I think the confidence will be up. We were smashed in Munster and today we nearly smashed them for 60 minutes. I have clever players and we learn a lot from our first participation.

“We were well organised and we were quite clever and crafty for 50 minutes, we score all the time when we needed and our defence was very strong.

“Against a physical team like Munster, if you go back once in the contact area then you are struggling.”

Recalling the shock of that first meeting, Saint-André said the Stade Mayol was a similarly small and cramped hotbed which also inspires his players, “and today we have more urgency than Munster. In Munster, Munster had much more urgency than us in every area. I think rugby is a physical game, but mentally it’s very important, and today you could see in the atmosphere before the game was something special, and the guys delivered on the pitch this special event and this special moment.

“All week I say ‘Guys, you are not under any pressure. Munster are in the Heineken Cup quarter-finals for the last 12 years so if we lost it’s normal, and if we win it’s a fantastic achievement. And also we have the opportunity to do this at home. Normally when you have the opportunity to do something special it’s away. So we don’t have any pressure, just to enjoy to play, to beat Munster and the monster of the Heineken Cup’,” he concluded, laughing almost with surprise at his own play on words in English.