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Published 10:54 18 Feb 2018 GMT
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"We didn't have the best of starts. We made a few errors and they got a couple of tries off that. We came in at half-time, regrouped and threw everything at them at the start of the second half. To come away with a losing bonus point, well, we'll take that and we're looking ahead, now, to next week."Simmons then asked if changing 'two-thirds' of the Munster starting XV had been the reason for his side looking so disjointed. "I can't say that's the reason why," he replied. "We'll have a look back at the video to see where it went wrong but I can't say that."
Simmons upped the ante by highlighting Munster's 'dodgy decisions', dropped balls and penalty count that went 'off the scale' in the last quarter of the game. O'Donoghue's eyes flashed at that one, and a nervous smile was raised, before he responded:
"I don't think that was the reason why [we lost]. You can make a dropped ball here or there but I think we stuck to our game-plan in the last 15 minutes. Decisions didn't go our way but you have to take that on the chin. We'll do that, regroup and look ahead to next week."On captaining his province for the first time, O'Donoghue said, "It's a proud moment for myself. I'll let it sink in over the weekend but... that's disappointing." The interview then ended in odd circumstances that appeared to irritate O'Donoghue. Simmons remarked that, as captain, he had at least won the toss. "I did, yeah," O'Donoghue replied before Simmons said "Good boy." O'Donoghue stalked away from the scene. https://twitter.com/patmccarry/status/965170114860666881 He handled himself well after a poor away defeat and an awkward post-match interview. There will surely be better days ahead for O'Donoghue when he gets the chance to captain Munster again.
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