Kidney happy to try some new things

As is his wont, Declan Kidney was inclined to accentuate the positive. And amid the many positives in an ambitious, edge-of-the-seat performance by Munster, he pointed out that it was the first time they had garnered three away wins out of three in one pool campaign.

"The reason we haven't done it before is because it's so difficult to do," said Kidney, who added that he was grateful that Bourgoin had shown their true hand a week before.

"Thankfully, last week Bourgoin played as well as they did today against Biarritz, so we knew that there was no point in taking them on up front all day. I think you saw that in the second half today, because once they get hold of the ball, they're not inclined to give it back.

"So to get a win against what I believe is a very good side the way they played today is a great achievement for us.

"We pushed it a lot and we made mistakes, but we made mistakes trying things, so depending on your point of view - had we lost today, would we be beating ourselves up?

"The players are already doing that to themselves. But unless you give a little bit of latitude to try a few things you're never going to improve as a side. And with the way analysis is now, everybody has a fair idea as to how we play - maybe they weren't expecting the way we played in the first half."

He had particular praise for the patience and courage his players showed at 20-20, when they had the vision to come up with what proved to be Lifeimi Mafi's match-winning try.

"It's easy enough, when it goes to nine or 10 phases, to hide at the bottom of the ruck, but everybody was willing to look for the ball and, eventually, Shaun (Payne) and Lifeimi finished off the good work by everybody else."

With a day's less preparation this week, they'll "spend more time analysing the video than out on the pitch", and Kidney ruled out a return for Trevor Halstead.

"It's going to be different from Gloucester and Sale, because they didn't actually have to win, did they? They just had to maybe keep the score down. This is the full Monty. Leicester are coming knowing they have to win to stay in the competition. That makes it different."

Munster are forever finding new goals. "Our target now is to win all our six pool games," said Marcus Horan. "We've never done that before. But we have to show Leicester huge respect. When Gloucester and Sale came, they didn't have to win; Leicester do now, and we know that they're going to be well up for the game. They're not going to have any fears and they're a class outfit. We're under no illusions. They had today sitting on their couches watching us, so it's going to be tough."

Of yesterday's game, Horan admitted it was "a bit bizarre" in part because Bourgoin weren't under pressure. He was full of praise for their Swiss/French hosts, but hinted that Munster's self-reproach might be no bad thing: "We know we left something behind us and, hopefully, we won't rue that next week. We have set ourselves high standards and we were highly critical when we come off the pitch."

Outhalf Ronan O'Gara felt Munster were never going to lose. "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."

Bourgoin's ex-Leinster, New Zealand-born lock Bryce Williams conceded his side "had a couple of lucky tries", and while he felt most of the marginals went against Bourgoin, he was more upset about the spate of scrummaging offences against his frontrow than about the penalty try. "It was fair, we pulled down the ruck. It was a fair call."

Williams was surprised at how open the game was, but didn't feel they had exposed any chinks in the champions' armour, or nothing that they can't fix.

A free bet on Munster v Leicester? "Mate, that's a hard one, but Munster at home. Always."