Munster Rugby's Ian Costello: "It wasn’t good enough by our standards"

MUNSTER Rugby interim head coach Ian Costello admitted the side's display was 'a long way off what we expect of ourselves' as the province suffered a disappointing 28-34 defeat to Edinburgh in the URC at a 'sold-out' Virgin Media Park in Cork on Friday night.

The result ended Munster's 10-game winning run in Cork dating back six years to 2019. The defeat is also a blow to Munster's hopes of securing a home quarter-final in the URC play-offs should the 2023 champions maintain their top eight position.

Munster did pick up two bonus points at the death on Friday night as Sean O'Brien scored the province's fourth try, with Billy Burns converting to ensure the home side finished within six points of their visitors. 

Following Friday's game, Munster interim head coach Costello was left to rue the side's failure to extend their excellent record in Cork with the match venue boasting a sold-out attendance of 8,800. Munster shipped five tries in all and trailed 7-29 at half-time.

Ian Costello said: "We needed to win that game. It’s a home game in Cork, we haven’t lost here since 2019, a really proud record that we’ve lost tonight. On top of that, we’ve worked so hard over the last couple of months to get ourselves into this position moving from 13th to fifth and there was a real chance to put a squeeze on the top four.

“Will that two points be important in six games’ time? I don’t know. I’m certainly happier to take two points from what it looked like with maybe 12 minutes to go but I don’t want to hide from the fact that wasn’t good enough by our standards, a long way off what we expect of ourselves.”

Costello said their display was 'not good enough for the standards we set ourselves'.

The first half was way off. It’s one of those ones where we’ll have to look back and see where that came from because we certainly didn’t feel it. We were off in so many elements, technically, tactically, but actually our fundamentals in terms of energy, how quick we move.

“We addressed it at half-time but even in the second half, even though the scoreline came in our favour a bit, not good enough for the standards we set ourselves.”

One of the few bright notes for Munster from the night was the two-try display from their fit-again New Zealand centre Alex Nakivell.

Costello said: “He’s outstanding and we singled him out in the dressing room along with Sean O’Brien, who is back from a long injury, and Mark Donnelly who hasn’t played at this level for a while. He had two big games for Cork Con in the last few weeks and the three of those players, Alex for the whole game and the other two at the end, yeah, warriors. Really good performances and Nanks was probably the pick of the bunch tonight.”