Munster Rugby's Ian Costello says officiating blunder not the reason for damaging Bulls defeat

MUNSTER Rugby interim head coach Ian Costello insisted an officiating error was not to blame for the side's disappointing 16-13 defeat to South African side, the Vodacom Bulls, in the URC at Thomond Park on Saturday evening.

Munster were incorrectly reduced to 14 men for 13 minutes during the second half of a hard fought contest in a mistake by the match officials.

Saturday night's defeat in front of an official attendance of 14,733 leaves Munster in seventh place in the URC table, just two points clear of the ninth-placed Scarlets. There are now just three rounds of fixtures to go in the regular season.

READ MORE: Munster Rugby fall to disappointing home defeat to the Bulls in URC

The top eight sides will make the URC quarter-final play-offs.

Unfortunate injuries to both starting tighthead prop Oli Jager on 14 minutes with a HIA and then his replacement Stephen Archer 38 minutes later left Munster incorrectly down a player between the 52nd and 65th minutes as Alex Kendellen was forced to leave the play.

Jager’s HIA was not taken into account and with no recognised tighthead left on the Munster Rugby replacements bench, referee Andrea Piardi called for uncontested scrums and ordered an extra forward off, back-rower Kendellen.

Neither side managed to score any points during the 13 minutes before Kendellen's return to the action.

Asked about the situation in the post-match press briefing, Munster Rugby interim coach, Ian Costello said: “We looked for clarification and unfortunately the information we got was we were down to 14 and then it got pretty confusing. A lot of people got involved.

“You can’t stop the game obviously. You probably would have seen everything that was going on on the sideline. Yeah, look, it’s one of those situations, it’s disappointing, but it isn’t the reason we lost the game. But yeah, it’s far from ideal .  . . . .

“I suppose what probably made it difficult was that Oli (Jager), the first substitution was for a HIA, the second one (Archer) was for an injury and that HIA should have ensured we stayed at 15.

“But look, it took 13 or 14 minutes before it got overturned and that’s something that we have got to look into . . . . 

"But that isn’t the reason we lost the game. There were too many elements in our performance that weren’t where we expect them to be, and we have to take that on the chin .  . . . 

“There were probably quite a few issues. I suppose it was such an emotional high over the last few weeks and that was always going to be the challenge and there were some aspects of our game that were a little bit flat.

“We use things like ‘bigs’ and ‘bounds’ to measure our energy and we were just a few per cent off on a lot of things. And they are a physical side, tough conditions, and I think yeah, it was probably spread across a few areas of our game.

“It’s one of those ones where you’re not really sure straight away afterwards, that you can’t put your finger on, but we have 24 hours to review it. We are back in again on Monday with a six-day turnaround to an absolutely must-win game next Friday. Simple as that.”

Munster were disrupted pre-match as both international scrum-half Craig Casey and back-row Peter O'Mahony were forced to cry off shortly before kick-off. Conor Murray and Jack O'Donoghue came into the starting team as a result.

Ian Costello explained: “Yeah, we knew Craig was sick. He looked like he had recovered and Pete had a tight hamstring. They got through the majority of the warm-up but just came up short near the end.

“We had contingencies. We have to be able to adapt, so we had a very specific plan for that, if one went or if two went. So, yeah, it’s not ideal but we have to be better than that.

“It’s probably more around the characters that we lost. The two of them are so influential. There’s such leadership from the two of them. The boys (Conor Murray and Jack O’Donoghue) came on and did a fine job but we have to adapt better.”