Clayton McMillan reflects on Munster’s Champions Cup exit

Munster head coach Clayton McMillan has said the province carried out a searching and honest review following their narrow exit from the Investec Champions Cup pool stages.

Munster were eliminated after a 31–29 defeat to Castres at Thomond Park last weekend, a result that left the province outside the qualification places despite fine margins across the pool.

Speaking after the review process, McMillan acknowledged the emotional impact of the loss on the squad and staff. He said the disappointment in the dressing room underlined how much the competition meant to the group, but stressed that Munster had to accept they did not do enough to progress.

“There was as much disappointment as I’ve seen in the changing room, no matter what environment I’ve been in, so that shows how much it sort of hurt the players,” said McMillan.

“To their credit, they’ve turned up today in a good frame of mind. We did a deep dive this morning,” added McMillan.

“There’s always a danger that when you are just erring on the negative side all the time that you feel like you never can get anything right. So it is a little bit of a balancing act.

"But today was one of those days where we actually needed to do a deep dive. We needed some honesty, a bit of vulnerability and we got that.”

Munster now turn their attention back to domestic competition, aiming to apply the lessons from their European campaign as they push for improvement in the weeks ahead.