{"id":146116,"date":"2025-10-26T11:21:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-26T11:21:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/146116\/"},"modified":"2025-10-26T11:21:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-26T11:21:11","slug":"effort-trumped-accuracy-and-discipline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/146116\/","title":{"rendered":"Effort trumped accuracy and discipline"},"content":{"rendered":"

Munster head coach Clayton McMillan was delighted with his side’s effort as they dug out a fifth win in a row, despite being far from perfect against Connacht.<\/p>\n

The 17-15 win<\/a> at Thomond Park leaves the 2023 champions joint top of the standings alongside Stormers, who they host in their next game after the international break.<\/p>\n

Jack O\u2019Donoghue scored a try in either half, including the winner with 12 minutes to play, while Diarmuid Kilgallen scored a first-half intercept try.<\/p>\n

JJ Hanrahan\u2019s conversion of that score proved to be the difference with the visitors missing all three conversion attempts.<\/p>\n

After their brilliant win over a fully loaded Leinster last weekend, McMillan had challenged his players to back up that performance against another interpro rival.<\/p>\n

\"top<\/p>\n

“It was always going to be tough back up the effort from last week,” the Kiwi told RT\u00c9 Sport\u2019s Michael Corcoran.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s something that we spoke a lot about and we can be proud of our efforts. We never stopped trying.<\/p>\n

“The accuracy wasn\u2019t always there, the discipline wasn\u2019t always there but made up for it through effort and Connacht were good, they pushed us the whole way.”<\/p>\n

McMillan joined the province over the summer and is able to sit back and enjoy the autumn break with a perfect record.<\/p>\n

\"25
\nJake O’Riordan came on as a second-half replacement for his debut<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s been really enjoyable getting my first experience of interpro rugby over here, very similar to when New Zealand or Australian teams play each other in the competition down south,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Really tough games, no inch given, really grateful to come away with the result.<\/p>\n

“Patience is something that we are trying to build within the squad, around our game-management, just pounding the rock and waiting for the right opportunities.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s always going to be a risk when we went down at half-time that we tried to win the game in the first five minutes.<\/p>\n

“But the risk when you do that is you get too loose and you end up losing it so we won enough of the moments in the second half and put enough pressure on them that they finally gave up the points that we needed to get across the line.”<\/p>\n

\"25
\nClayton McMillan has led Munster to five wins on the trot<\/p>\n

He added: “[We\u2019ve played] five different teams that all play slightly different.<\/p>\n

“We\u2019ve churned our way through 41 players so I really hope that sets us up well for the next block of games.<\/p>\n

“You can\u2019t beat being out in the middle.<\/p>\n

“Special mention for [debutant scrum-half] Jake O\u2019Riordan, young fella, 20-year-old, came on at a pivotal moment of the game, didn\u2019t overplay his hand, didn\u2019t underplay it, just did what was required so I was really proud of him.”<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Connacht have now lost three of their four games – their second-round match at home to Scarlets was postponed \u2013 and have to regroup before they resume at home to the Sharks on 29 November.<\/p>\n

“Pride in the resilience we showed,” head coach Stuart Lancaster (below) replied when asked for his thoughts after the game.<\/p>\n

\"25<\/p>\n

“The first half was very good. Intercept aside, I thought we deserved the lead.<\/p>\n

“In the second half Munster dominated possession and territory. We couldn\u2019t get out of the stranglehold they had.<\/p>\n

“We got a point which is small consolation, but I think it\u2019s a game we could have won, if I\u2019m honest.<\/p>\n

“It swung on small margins; Munster came out the right side.<\/p>\n

“We’ve got four bonus points now in defeats, but we need to turn those into wins in the next block.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Munster head coach Clayton McMillan was delighted with his side’s effort as they dug out a fifth win…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":146117,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[18,19,17,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-146116","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115440208114728894","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}