Beirne: ‘To me it’s offside but he felt they weren’t in the way and they weren’t offside’

With a last-minute try to prevent Munster from earning a losing bonus point,

Henry Slade gave Exeter their second victory in as many games in Champions Cup Pool 3.

However, the score was contentious because Slade’s pick of a Conor Murray pass came as two retreating

teammates and referee Raynal himself blocked his burst from the Chiefs’ defensive line.

Munster captain Tadhg Beirne expressed his frustration to referee Mathieu Raynal after

Exeter Chiefs’ game-winning try as his team lost 34–23 at Sandy Park.

However, the Ireland star added that the Reds’ inability to maintain calm and

high turnover rate were the main causes of their loss.

With a last-minute try to prevent Munster from earning a losing bonus point,

Henry Slade gave Exeter their second victory in as many games in Champions Cup Pool 3.

However, the score was contentious because Slade’s pick of a Conor Murray pass came as two

retreating teammates and referee Raynal himself blocked his burst from the Chiefs’ defensive line.

According to Beirne, “I believe there were two or three careless runners;

even he is probably in the way of the pass.”

“‘Mur’ will be penalised for the entire day if he chooses to toss the ball at one of them.

He tries to pass it to the second man,

but they intercept it as we try to play there and they prevent us from hitting the “10.”

However, they are initially obstructing the pass. Although it seems wrong to me,

Raymond decided that they weren’t in the way and weren’t offending.

We’ve stated it several times.

We won’t hold the referee responsible because we could have ended the game much sooner and were already behind in it.

That was his choice, whether or not we agree with him. Before that,

we had plenty of chances to improve our situation.

Nevertheless, when the French official left his meeting with his TMO,

Beirne had held a long discussion with Raynal.

All I was doing was doubting his choice. Slade stated he wasn’t offside, and I responded,

“That’s okay, if Slade wasn’t offside,

I was wondering about the other three players who were returning and were blocking the pass.”

He simply stated that he had made his choice, and because it was a crucial point in our battle,

I encouraged him to reconsider.

We believed that winning this would put us in a position to compete

for a spot in the top four and give us a chance to finish first or even second in the group.

Though he did address the fundamental causes of yesterday’s loss,

Beirne concluded, saying, “Maybe we lacked a little bit of composure at times but you’ve got to give Exeter credit.”

They are the ones who are familiar with their home field the best, and in the second half,

I believe they played extremely shrewdly with the wind.

We were trapped into the corner a few times, but we managed to stay there.

Afterwards, the ball bounced against us, and in the end,

they made a decision that, as you can obviously guess, I disagreed with.

However, it was the choice that was made, and we were under posts there twice.

Very difficult to accept, for sure. We undoubtedly had opportunities to change the game,

perhaps retake their half, and even score. However, we most likely simply made a couple too many mistakes.