Perpignan ... 23 Munster ... 8In a small room adjacent to the cramped press room, in the main stand between the dressing-rooms as reconstruction work continues on one unused side of the Stade Aime Giral, Jerry Holland was having an animated exchange of views with an ERC official and the match commissioner.
Presumably it wasn't as colourful as the 80th-minute exchange between Mick Galwey and the fourth official, who spoke only French and was a replacement for the unwell Rene Hourquet. This compounded the officials losing their link-up equipment on the flight over on Friday night.
Holland, if not quite to the same extent as Galwey, was also incensed by the fourth official manhandling Galwey as he attempted to join the fray.
"I would have felt the competition deserved better than that," Holland said of his varying grievances. However, the Munster manager stressed he felt Nigel Williams "had a very good game" and Munster could have no excuses. "The better team won."
No, this was no Munster sob story, and if there was a time for Galwey's arrival it had passed 15 or 20 minutes beforehand.
Compared to previous sorties to France, Munster seemed to lose their way a little, lacking focus - both in desire and tactics. As in their earlier pool defeat in Gloucester, they were well-placed at half-time only to be blown away and beaten by four tries to one.
It also bears repeating that Munster played their best rugby in reaching the Twickenham final three seasons ago when regularly scoring 30 points or more against quality sides such as Saracens, Stade Francais and Toulouse. Their greater potency then emanated from the use of three strike runners - Keith Wood, David Wallace and Mike Mullins - as well as Anthony Horgan's finishing out wide.
Last season, it was a comparative struggle to reach another final. This season, though they possibly have more dynamic ball-carriers in Paul O'Connell, Rob Henderson, Wallace, Mullins and Horgan, the problem is apart from Mullins, they're all injured.
A stunned Alan Gaffney described Munster's second-half display as their worst 40 minutes of the season. Certainly Munster didn't gainfully use Anthony Foley, Alan Quinlan and John Hayes close in, nor did they use Ronan O'Gara's tactical kicking.
Asked where this game was won and lost, Perpignan's former Ulster schools and current Canadian number eight, Phil Murphy, said: "Our pack's aggressive nature, not only in the scrums and line-outs and what not, but also at the contact point.
"A focus point for us was to win the contact point. When we were in Thomond Park we lost the contact point, but today the focus was to win more than we lost."
Munster players, in contrast, bemoaned the constant turnovers in contact, resulting from their poor body positions, protection of the ball and option taking.
In any event, the game hinged on one of the many Munster turnovers in contact just past the hour, at 13-8 down, when Mike Mullins took the ball up in contact, whereupon it skewed forward 20 metres for the mightily impressive scrumhalf Ludovic Loustau to launch a counter-attack which released Frederic Cermeno up the left.
From the resulting five-metre scrum, coach Olivier Saiset made an inspired double substitution with Stephane de Besombes on at hooker, Christophe Porcu at lock, with Rimas Alvarez Kairelis moving to number eight. The latter was held up from the base of the scrum by Jim Williams, but no-one plugged the inside gap as blindside flanker Gregory le Corvec burrowed over.
Appropriately, the abrasive, awesome Argentinian Alvarez Kairelis, whose performance underlined what Munster were missing in the absence of O'Connell, had the final say when scoring himself off a forward drive with Denis Leamy a one-man defence.
Perpignan ultimately changed half their pack, whereas Munster's lack of reinforcements merely highlighted how flimsy their back-up from the bench was. Murphy also revealed Perpignan weren't in the least bit fazed by turning into the wind with merely a 13-8 lead, and with a scrummaging and a mauling game like theirs why would they?
Perpignan were also keeping a few aces up their sleeves. Whereas in the first half they were content to go for quick feeds from the scrum, in the second they exerted much greater pressure at set pieces.
This was also yet another example of a team playing far better at home than they did in the away fixture, and of a team which didn't perform with the same passion and intensity as they did when at home in the original meeting.
Defeats such as these merely underline the merit of five previous wins on French soil. Out of 10 European Cup visitors to the Stade Aime Giral, Leicester have been the only ones to return with the spoils. No less than Kingsholm, there needn't be any great disgrace in losing here. Most do.
Scoring sequence: 13 mins: Edmonds pen 3-0; 16 mins: O'Gara pen 3-3; 28 mins: Cermeno try 8-3; 30 mins: Giordani try 13-3; 40 (+5 mins): Foley try 13-8; (half-time 13-8); 63 mins: Le Corvec try 18-8; 86 mins: Alvarez Kairelis try 23-8.
PERPIGNAN: J-M Souverbie; P Bomati, P Giordani, C Manas, F Cermeno; M Edmonds, L Loustau; P Meya, M Konieckiewicz, N Mas, J Thion, R Alvarez-Kairelis, G Le Corvec, P Murphy, B Goutta (capt). Replacements: S de Bescombes for Meya (63 mins), C Porcu for Murphy (63 mins), S Deroeux for Le Corvec (78 mins), M dal Maso for Konieckiewicz (79 mins). Sinbinned: Goutta (71-81 mins).
MUNSTER: J Staunton; J Kelly, M Mullins, J Holland, M Lawlor; R O'Gara, P Stringer; M Horan, F Sheahan, J Hayes, D O'Callaghan, M O'Driscoll, J Williams (capt), A Quinlan, A Foley. Replacements: D Leamy for Williams (24-30 mins) and for Quinlan (77 mins), M Galwey for O'Driscoll (80 mins).
Referee: N Williams (Wales).
