Ronan O'Gara felt Munster were never going to lose today's Heineken Cup clash at Bourgoin despite the French side running four tries past the defending champions at the Stade de Geneve.
Munster eventually won 30-27 and O'Gara insists he was unconcerned despite Bourgoin leading three times and fighting back brilliantly to draw level at 20-20.
It seemed Christophe Urios' charges were finally playing to their potential after six straight European defeats in the past year.
Reflecting on his side's fifth Pool 4 victory, O'Gara said: "It was looking hairy for a while but I felt we did enough to deserve the win. It was a tough finish but I didn't think we were going to lose the game at any stage.
"I was probably more confident than you guys (the press). We should have got a score near the end, when Axel (Anthony Foley) drove up close to the line, and that was frustrating. The bonus point was really there for the taking."
In a frenetic first 40 minutes, Bourgoin capitalised on Munster mistakes to send number eight and captain Julien Bonnaire and centre Guillaume Bousses over the try line, and they would have notched a third had substitute Nicolas Carmona not been called back for an infringement.
But in what was coach Declan Kidney's 60th Heineken Cup match, Munster showed real spirit to nab tries through prop Marcus Horan and centre Lifeimi Mafi. Those touchdowns sandwiched a penalty try, but it was O'Gara's 15-point kicking haul that provided the telling buffer.
Now just three points ahead of former champions Leicester at the top of the pool, Munster need to beat the Tigers at Thomond Park on Saturday to secure a home quarter-final berth.
"The scores they got, we really gifted them to them - they got their tries directly from our own errors," said Ireland outhalf O'Gara, whose Heineken Cup points-scoring record now stands at 830 points.
"To gift them those scores was really disappointing and it's something we're going to have to look at before the Leicester game."
When Mafi went over and O'Gara converted and added a penalty to make it 30-20, it looked as if Munster would close out the game with ease but Bourgoin bounced back with Nicolas' second try.
Adopting an open game plan from the kick-off, Munster tried to blitz Bourgoin by running the ball at almost every opportunity.
However very little came off for them against a reinforced French defence.
O'Gara added: "It was a great pitch, great conditions. We're trying to develop a 15-man game and at times today it looked good. At other times it was terrible. There was some suicidal passing out there near the end and I don't know where that was coming from. But we got the win and know exactly what we have to do next week in Limerick."
