STILL DIGESTING MUNSTER’S 17-17 draw with Bayonne on Saturday evening, Graham Rowntree struggled to make sense of it all.

This was a night in which Munster were expected to kick-off their Champions Cup season in style. Even without the services of a notable handful of key men the URC champions were expected to have enough to dismantle their French opponents.

Instead it was the visitors who made this an occasion to remember. Bayonne are newcomers to this competition but it was their fans who brought the noise at Thomond Park and their players who rolled up their sleeves to snatch a famous result. In the end the draw was the least they deserved. Munster were lucky it wasn’t worse, and they knew it.

Having led 14-3 at half-time thanks to tries from Shay McCarthy and Gavin Coombes, the home side were desperately inefficient after the break as passes missed their target, the lineout fell apart and repeated trips to the Bayonne 22 brought no return.

A single Jack Crowley penalty proved Munster’s only points of the second 40 as Bayonne rallied back to silence Thomond Park with converted tries from Junior Tagi and Rémy Baget.

Bayonne celebrated the draw like a win. A dejected Rowntree said it felt like a loss.

His captain for the night, Tadhg Beirne, echoed those sentiments.

“Yeah, just disappointment in the dressing room to be honest,” Beirne said.

We were probably in control of it for 90% of the game, and you compound a few mistakes and the next thing you know, we’re defending our line about to lose the game. That’s sport.”

Beirne was one of Munster’s better performers with a number of important steals but acknowledged that he too was guilty of inaccuracies on the night, the 31-year-old throwing a loose pass out of touch midway through the second half with Munster 17-10 up and looking to put the game to bed.

“We weren’t clinical. We weren’t clinical at all really,” he continued.

“A lot of mistakes, a lot mistakes inside the 22, a lot of mistakes in the lineout.

“They made out a dogfight out of it and I’m sure they’ll be pretty pleased coming out with a draw, but yeah, we’re not too happy inside in that dressing room at the moment.”

Munster will have to pick themselves up quickly. Next weekend they travel to Sandy Park to take on an Exeter side who kicked-started their own Champions Cup season with a dramatic 19-18 win at Toulon.

Munster have plenty to focus on this week but finding a more clinical edge in the opposition 22 will be right at the top of the list.

“In the middle of the field we were in good nick but it’s on their tryline. Time and possession,” Rowntree explained. “That’s where you score and we’ve got to better there.

“That’s all we can do, look at what we can do better there. We weren’t quite at it there. We spoke about it at half time, we thought we corrected it at half time but then the third quarter we couldn’t force ourselves upon them on their tryline.

“And credit to them, their breakdown, there’s a lot of weight there. They were chancing their arm but credit to them, they’re new into this competition but we’re not.

“That’s the disappointing thing. We had an opportunity there to do something better than that tonight, to show a better version of ourselves and we haven’t.

“We didn’t lose, (but) it feels like we did in the dressing room. We’ve just made life harder for ourselves.

“We’ll see what we can put on the field next week, we’ve got a few knocks tonight, a few guys coming back, (we’ll) name the team late in the week for a huge game.

“It was always a big game, you go to Exeter in Europe, Sandy Park, a week before Christmas… It’s just got bigger now.”