{"id":292147,"date":"2026-01-19T11:59:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T11:59:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/292147\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T11:59:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T11:59:12","slug":"cian-tracey-clayton-mcmillans-line-in-the-sand-moment-fades-as-munster-face-grim-challenge-cup-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/292147\/","title":{"rendered":"Cian Tracey: Clayton McMillan\u2019s \u2018line in the sand\u2019 moment fades as Munster face grim Challenge Cup reality"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Munster's Jack Crowley kicks a conversion during the Investec Champions Cup match against Castres Olympique at Thomond Park; he missed three out of four Photo by Seb Daly\/Sportsfile\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Sports3322783.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Munster&#8217;s Jack Crowley kicks a conversion during the Investec Champions Cup match against Castres Olympique at Thomond Park; he missed three out of four Photo by Seb Daly\/Sportsfile<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">For the pockets of Munster fans dotted around Barack Obama Plaza late on Saturday night, the final nail in the coffin at the end of a dark day for their province occurred when Zombie was played on the loudspeaker.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Before Dolores O\u2019Riordan had even sung the first line, the shell-shocked faces wearing red jerseys sunk into their chips, as they began to come to terms with the sobering reality that for only the second time in Munster\u2019s proud history, the knockout stages of the Challenge Cup beckon, away to Exeter Chiefs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Munster&#8217;s Jack Crowley kicks a conversion during the Investec Champions Cup match against Castres Olympique at Thomond Park;&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292148,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[39921,23202,18,19,17,73724,12311,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-292147","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-cian-tracey","9":"tag-clayton-mcmillan","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-jack-crowley","14":"tag-munster-rugby","15":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115921653773748478","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292147","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=292147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}