ANTHONY FOLEY CUT an understandably dejected figure in the bowels of Stade Jean-Bouin after his Munster side were comprehensively beaten 27-7 by Stade Français.
The defeat means Foley’s men will fail to exit their Champions Cup pool for the second season in a row, and the pressure on the Munster head coach will only rise after the nature of this performance.
Foley's Munster have failed to emerge from the pool stages for two seasons in a row. Dan Sheridan / INPHO
Dan Sheridan / INPHO / INPHO
Despite Stade playing the second half with 14 men after a red card for Fijian wing Josaia Raisuqe on the stroke of the half-time break, the French outfit remained the better side.
Their 10-0 lead at the interval was extended to 27-0 before Conor Murray’s late converted try for Munster, leaving the southern province humiliated.
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“Hands to the face, everyone knows you can’t do that,” said Foley of the red card. “I thought if we got in at 10-3 and got some momentum at the start of the second half, tried to force some pressure on them… but we never got the chance to force pressure on them.”
Ian Keatley missed with the penalty attempt to make it a 10-3 scoreline at the break, but Munster nonetheless should have offered much more in the second half.
Out there, you know there’s space there and it’s trying to avail of that space and keep pressure on them,” said Foley. “We never managed to get that squeeze on them in the second half and that’s good defence out of them, good control out of them and maybe at times it’s poor discipline out of us.
“It was the same problems again; a lack of control, losing the breakdown, inability to score, putting ourselves under a lot of pressure and you end up conceding those sort of scores. It’s very disappointing.”
While Foley’s position will come under pressure following this latest blow, the question of whether this Munster squad has enough quality to actually compete in Europe must also be asked.
The ‘same problems again,’ but does Foley believe this group of players is actually good enough to fix those issues?
The Munster coach will face major criticism. Dan Sheridan / INPHO
Dan Sheridan / INPHO / INPHO
“You’d like to think so,” said Foley in reply. “Before [the Champions Cup game against] Treviso, we were scoring at a good volume and since Treviso, we’ve struggled to get the scoreboard ticking over.
“It’s something we’ve worked hard on and something we’ve tried to fix, and we haven’t seen it out on the pitch.
The results are the key. Last year, losing to Clermont at home proved key. Losing to Leicester at home has been key this year. The inability to score this year has really hampered us.”
“I don’t know, everyone has an opinion,” said Foley in response to Quinlan’s comments. “He’s got the right to his opinion, he’s worn the jersey, he’s won, he’s lost. He’s had good day and bad days. We’ll look at it ourselves and we’ll make sure we try to do as good a job as we can within this organisation.
“Everyone’s upping the ante and we’ve upped the ante as well, but unfortunately we haven’t got the results that we wanted to get. We need to deal with that and we’ll obviously go away and assess that and hopefully come back with some answers.
“The answers need to be physical ones, they have to be answers that we can see out on the pitch. Unfortunately at the moment, we’re not giving those answers.”
'It was the same problems again' - Déjà vu for Foley's Munster in Paris
ANTHONY FOLEY CUT an understandably dejected figure in the bowels of Stade Jean-Bouin after his Munster side were comprehensively beaten 27-7 by Stade Français.
The defeat means Foley’s men will fail to exit their Champions Cup pool for the second season in a row, and the pressure on the Munster head coach will only rise after the nature of this performance.
Despite Stade playing the second half with 14 men after a red card for Fijian wing Josaia Raisuqe on the stroke of the half-time break, the French outfit remained the better side.
Their 10-0 lead at the interval was extended to 27-0 before Conor Murray’s late converted try for Munster, leaving the southern province humiliated.
“Hands to the face, everyone knows you can’t do that,” said Foley of the red card. “I thought if we got in at 10-3 and got some momentum at the start of the second half, tried to force some pressure on them… but we never got the chance to force pressure on them.”
Ian Keatley missed with the penalty attempt to make it a 10-3 scoreline at the break, but Munster nonetheless should have offered much more in the second half.
“It was the same problems again; a lack of control, losing the breakdown, inability to score, putting ourselves under a lot of pressure and you end up conceding those sort of scores. It’s very disappointing.”
While Foley’s position will come under pressure following this latest blow, the question of whether this Munster squad has enough quality to actually compete in Europe must also be asked.
The ‘same problems again,’ but does Foley believe this group of players is actually good enough to fix those issues?
“You’d like to think so,” said Foley in reply. “Before [the Champions Cup game against] Treviso, we were scoring at a good volume and since Treviso, we’ve struggled to get the scoreboard ticking over.
“It’s something we’ve worked hard on and something we’ve tried to fix, and we haven’t seen it out on the pitch.
Speaking on Sky Sports post-match, Foley’s former teammate Alan Quinlan stated his belief that the whole Munster organisation needs to be “dissected”.
“I don’t know, everyone has an opinion,” said Foley in response to Quinlan’s comments. “He’s got the right to his opinion, he’s worn the jersey, he’s won, he’s lost. He’s had good day and bad days. We’ll look at it ourselves and we’ll make sure we try to do as good a job as we can within this organisation.
“Everyone’s upping the ante and we’ve upped the ante as well, but unfortunately we haven’t got the results that we wanted to get. We need to deal with that and we’ll obviously go away and assess that and hopefully come back with some answers.
“The answers need to be physical ones, they have to be answers that we can see out on the pitch. Unfortunately at the moment, we’re not giving those answers.”
Alan Quinlan’s verdict after Munster’s awful night in Paris: ‘embarrassing, borderline disgraceful’
Munster crash out of Europe in depressing fashion against 14-man Stade
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Anthony Foley Axel Munster Stade Français Under Pressure