Embarrassing and humiliating were just two of the words used by former Munster great Alan Quinlan as he described his former province's defeat at the hands of Stade Francais in the Champions Cup this weekend.
The chastening loss has led to questions about the future of head coach Anthony Foley but also to wider points about how Munster can recapture their former glories after a period on the wane.
Tonight on Off The Ball, Liam Toland and Trevor Hogan joined us to share their views of the situation.
"Fundamentally, I think the Munster brand has been wasted," said Liam of the structural issues as he also discussed the need for the organisation to be more ruthless across the board in the hunt for efficiency and improvement.
"If you look at Connacht, they've always been under-financed in comparison to the three other provinces. But they have been changing key personnel in key positions in the back-room staff, like the Chief Executive changed, a number of key people have changed. If you talk to any of the guys running professional sport in rugby in the UK, they could be broke tomorrow, they could be relegated at the end of the season. There's an unbelievable cut-throat environment and they don't necessarily have a community that feeds players into them like the schools."
Trevor also felt a number of issues need to be addressed including the spread of emphasis towards both Limerick and Cork for the province in terms of its base, while Liam discussed leadership issues on the field, skill-set and the approach.
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