Simon Zebo was keen to look to the future rather than dwell on Munster's devastating defeat to Saracens at the Aviva Stadium.
Rassie Erasmus' men were out-thought and out-fought by the two-time (and consecutive) European champions as Saracens' black tide engulfed the 15 red men paddling at its shore, but Zebo, who strolled the Aviva pitch with his son Jacob after Munster had huddled for a debrief, shed some light on Munster's mentality following the game.
Speaking at the post-match press conference at the Aviva, Zebo explained:
I think we are at the start of a period together with this new squad that we have, and we're very excited even though today is really, really disappointing and hard to take.
But we know that there is a bright future with this squad and we said on the pitch afterwards that we were not going to let this be the full stop, but that we're really going to drive on as a collective and make sure our future is bright.
There's still a lot to play for in the season. Our goal at the start of the season was to be fighting for titles come the end of it. We were one step away from it today but we're still in with a fighting chance of winning silverware at the end of it.
Erasmus, meanwhile, whom Niall Scannell confirmed will remain at the province beyond the end of this season, admitted he felt Munster had only a slight chance of beating Saracens coming into the contest.
The South African coach admitted his side weren't quite able to deal with the pressure put on them by their more experienced opponents:
I think the disappointment is more for the supporters. But then we have to be realistic. This is the reality we only got this far. We are 15 or 20 points behind Saracens.
We could have done many things differently in this game but at the end of the day I think they would have given us the same hiding they did today.
I thought before this game we had a little, small chance. There are many elements we were missing. But the biggest thing was the mental, the heat and the pressure and things that are turning against you and how to handle that.
But against the double champions in both Europe and the Premiership we weren’t able to handle that today.
