Munster head coach Clayton McMillan’s tone of voice was one of immense satisfaction after beating Connacht at Thomond Park on Saturday night.
Five wins from five in the United Rugby Championship with a team that has only just begun their journey was as good as he could have hoped for as the first block of matches concluded.
Munster will face an Argentinian team next, but as far as the URC goes, they completed what they set out to do, perhaps even over-achieving with their win over Leinster at Croke Park last week.
“It hasn’t come to us easy and that’s been something that we’ve talked about a little bit,” said McMillan. “We found a way and we did that again tonight. I still think we’re miles away from playing our best rugby.
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“When we get all of our best players available, I reckon we could be some hell of a team. But for the time being, we’ll just accept that we aren’t quite that team. But we are growing a bit of belief.
“We’re getting a better understanding around the team that we want to be. Not just out on the field, but day-to-day habits. We’re growing in depth, so there’s a huge amount of positives.
“But we stay grounded. There’s a long, long way to go. You’ve just got to celebrate these sorts of moments to get through this block. Five from five. Next week we play an Argentina XV. We want to really respect that game.”
Captain Jack O’Donoghue shared McMillan’s satisfaction in finishing their first five matches without defeat. His two tries were pivotal in a tight match but it was the sense of completion before the run of international weekends that was prevalent.
“Yeah, it wasn’t easy. It’s incredibly satisfying. We kept pounding away at their line.
“There were probably times where we weren’t too happy with the backs taking the ball out, but as a forward pack I think we fronted up. We kept working and ultimately we got over the line in the end, which was really pleasing.
“It’s not often I get over the try line ... It was tough to match the emotion of last week, but I think we spoke about it during the week, about if you can’t get there, mostly you have to go bring accuracy. At times we had that, at times we didn’t.”
Connacht head coach Stuart Lancaster was disappointed in his side’s loss, which leaves them with one win from four games, but tried hard to see the bigger picture of a work in progress.
“There’s always regrets, but overall, my job coming in here was to start to learn about the players and learn about the group. I feel I’ve learned a lot,” he said.
“There’s no issues there. We’ve got a tremendous group of players who want to work hard for each other. We need to be a little bit more accurate under pressure, but overall, the foundations of what we’re building is strong, so I’m confident.
“Confident because we’ve got some good players away, who are away with Ireland. We’ve got a couple of good players who are injured and we’ve got some very good young players coming through, so the experience for Seán Naughton or Harry West out there is invaluable.”
