McMillan laments Munster throwing away "a nice handy lead" in wild draw with Ulster

Ulster 26 

Munster 26 

No-one celebrates a draw. 

Munster supremo Clayton McMillan felt their eight-try stalemate with Ulster in Belfast on Saturday night was one that got away. 

Richie Murphy waved away the cliché about mixed emotions. 

All he felt was bitter disappointment.

Munster looked almost home and hosed by the interval. Up 26-5 by then, a try-scoring bonus point already secured on the back of overwhelming dominance in possession and territory and a penalty count that was killing the hosts.

Problem was they didn’t score again and Ulster could have even stolen it at the death. So, three points it was, but a case of another two lost?

“Probably, yeah, A nice handy lead that we earned at half-time,” said the Munster head coach before the long trip home. “Talked about it at half-time, that Ulster are a quality side that won't go away.

“We needed to continue to be accurate and just apply pressure in the right parts of the field. 

"But we didn’t quite get the same quality of possession in the second-half, and Ulster were good enough to find a way back into the game.”

This was still a vast improvement on their last visit to Belfast which ended with a 25-point defeat. 

And Munster did it without a handful of big names and with three enforced changes from the side named on Thursday. What that meant was a reliance on a bench that was littered with youth and inexperience.

“They’re a good side but if you look at what we had out on the field, again, we had a couple of late changes. 

"Tom Ahern out, Diarmuid Barron out. "So we had a lot of young guys out there at the back end of the game, and they would have learned a huge amount from the last 10 or 15 minutes, which will put us in good stead later on.

“But we don't have any excuses. We just we weren't as tidy, and we didn't apply the same amount of pressure in the right areas that we did in the first-half. 

"And potentially paid a price, but take nothing away from them. They found a way, and that's the way it rolls.” 

His opposite number might have expected to be cock a hoop after erasing a 21-point deficit in a game where they lost the penalty count 16-5, but Murphy was far from it after a second draw in as many weeks for a side still chasing a first win after three attempts.

This was almost a repeat of their opening loss at home to Edinburgh in that sense.

“We're really disappointed about how we started the game. We’ve prepped really well coming into this and felt like we were in a really good position. 

"But for some reason, early on in the game, we're finding very hard to get a foothold in the game," said Murphy.

“We allowed Munster to set the tempo. We were inaccurate with our first launch and on the back of that, then penalty, penalty, and then you're back in your corner and you're fighting for your life. 

"I thought the lads reacted really well. We made a few changes.

“Still very inaccurate in the second-half, and didn't look after the ball well enough. We didn't control field position at all in the game, but ultimately got ourselves into a situation where last play of the game we're running at them and we give them the ball back again.”

Cue the boos from the home fans. 

They wanted more and who could blame them?

Ulster: E McIlroy, R Baloucoune, J Benson, S McCloskey, J Stockdale, J Murphy, N Doak; E O’Sullivan, T Stewart, K Knox, B Donnell, E Snyman, C Izuchukwu, N Timoney, J Augustus.

Replacements: D McCann for Snyman (19); T O’Toole for O’Sullivan, T McAllister for Knox and J McNabney for Augustus (all HT); M Devine for Doak (all 50); H Walker for Stewart (80).

Munster: B O'Connor, S McCarthy, A Nankivell, D Kelly, S O'Brien, JJ Hanrahan, C Casey; J Loughman, M van der Merwe, K Brookes, E O'Connell, T Beirne; J O'Donoghue, A Kendellen, G Coombes.

Replacements: B Gleeson for Coombes and J Aungier for Brookes (both 50); J Hodnett for Kendellen (54); M Foy for O’Connell (61); M Clein for van der Merwe and J Wycherley for Loughman (both 66); C O’Shea for Hanrahan (70); B O’Donovan for Casey (73).

Referee: C Evans (WRU).