Cian Prendergast: Connacht staying grounded after derby win against Munster

Having kept an even keel after five defeats in a row, Cian Prendergast says Connacht won't be getting too ahead of themselves after an impressive victory against Munster.

Pete Wilkins' side put on a set-piece clinic against the URC champions, forcing turnovers on seven of Munster's 16 lineouts, while in the final quarter of the game they got dominance in what had been an evenly matched scrum contest.

It saw the province pick up a first win since their defeat of the Sharks in Durban back in November, and sees them leapfrog Munster into ninth place in the URC table.

"We expect to win every game," Prendergast insisted.

"I think we were a little bit more relieved, so that's probably why you saw that outburst of emotion. We're well aware it's been tough, we've been on the s**t side of a couple of results.

"It was more relief than anything and hopefully we can springboard and get momentum.

"We'd been on the bad side of a couple of games, but we weren't in as bad of a place as the results dictated. The Bordeaux game was a bit of an anomaly, just a poor performance, the Saracens game was a lot of controllables we let go of. Either side of those, the Interpros, we just needed to be more precise. We were in a better place than the results said, so we just wanted to show that."

The province showed real steel in the final quarter of the game, in stark contrast to some of their recent defeats where they shipped 50-plus points to the Bulls and Sharks, as well as 41 points to Bordeaux-Begles.

And Prendergast says much of that credit goes to the coaches, who mad sure they took a cold approach to analysing their defeats.

"The coaching staff, they really took the emotion out of it. They said, 'this is what we have to work on but also this is an