The mood in Munster is not getting any better after they were subjected to a fifth defeat on the bounce by bitter rivals Leinster on Sunday evening at Thomond Park.
The head coach is now under pressure to start turning results around, but many of his frustrations come from the way his team are losing games.
Failure to score despite having possession and being in good position, the maul not working, and making errors at critical points are just some of the things he highlighted in a dour post-match press conference on Sunday night as he tried to pick out where things have been going wrong.
"The concern I have is we're not scoring. We had plenty of opportunity plenty of possession and in the last four games we're very soft in the opposition 22 in terms of giving up the ball. It's needless. We don't get the scoreboard ticking over, we don't apply pressure through the scoreboard and that gives the opposition opportunities to win games".
He's not alone in being annoyed with those parts of the game, however, as Munster fans who attended last night's match can attest to. They watched their team work hard to get back into the match after conceding a try to a scintillating run and offload from the exciting Garry Ringrose, and go through phases without making any real progress.
Image: ©INPHO/Dan Sheridan
Foley pointed out those difficulties in his assessment of the game too, saying that it's becoming a common theme in their last few defeats: "we have the ball, we have it through a number of phases unfortunately, and I said it last week again, we don't seem to be ruthless enough in that area of the pitch to maintain it and get the points on the board. Seven points isn't good enough in a game like this to win it, you're not going to win 7-6 here".
He added that a lack of confidence out on the pitch was coming courtesy of the run that they now find themselves on, which lead to some of the unforced errors: "We had a maul there tonight and it came backwards [...] one or two of our experienced players dropping balls under no pressure. I suppose when you've lost four on the bounce confidence becomes an issue".
Image: ©INPHO/Billy Stickland
In the end, however, Foley wasn't looking for excuses, acknowledging that that last month has "been horrendous, we can't hide away from the fact that we need to get a win. It's just another tough week, we need to take another hard look at ourselves and figure out how to get that win that will hopefully reignite our season".
The outlook isn't getting any better for the province either: "You lose three games in Thomond Park and the next batch of games, you've got five and only one is at home. It's a very tough place to be at the moment and we need to get out of it".
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