Munster head coach Johann van Graan felt his side could have completed a miraculous turnaround against Racing 92 in their Champions Cup semi-final if they had a couple of minutes to spare.
The away side scored three tries in the closing stages from Simon Zebo, Rhys Marshall and Andrew Conway to give the score-line a healthier outlook in a 27-22 defeat.
And Van Graan, speaking to David McIntyre, admitted he felt his side were capable of salvaging a result in the closing stages.
“I’ve always got belief in our squad and our club,” Van Graan said.
“You’ve got to believe by faith and not by sight and maybe if we had one or two minutes more we could have done it. But like I said, it’s all in the past now and credit to Racing they were the better team.”
Defeat in Bordeaux marked a second consecutive semi-final exit in the Champions Cup after losing out to Saracens at the same stage of the competition last season.
Munster attempted to acclimatise to their warmer surroundings by spending time in South Africa in the lead up to the clash.
Van Graan acknowledged the value of the trip will come into question but insisted the training camp helped his team overall.
“First, I’ll have to have a look at the game,” Van Graan said.
“Obviously, [you’re] pretty spot on with what you said. We’ve got no regrets in the way we did it. We came a lot closer as a team over there and we had a fantastic few weeks.
“It’s a difficult thing to do [to pick the players up]. Everybody at the club, all the management [and] coaching staff put their heart and souls into this game.
“I thought our last few weeks in terms of our planning - our trip to South Africa – we put everything into this game. I haven’t given any thought about what happens after this but the positive is we’ve qualified for the home play-off game in two week’s time.
“We’ll take our time; get back to Limerick and Cork and then start at zero again.”
Written by James Hopper
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