Munster head coach Graham Rowntree shifts focus to 'massive' game against Ulster

Graham Rowntree admits that Munster's defeat to Leinster has ramped up the pressure ahead of their New Year's Day clash with Ulster.

Having let a winning position slip against Leinster, Munster travel to Kingspan Stadium for their final interprovincial derby of the BKT United Rugby Championship regular season.

With six defeats from 10 league games, Rowntree knows they cannot afford many more slip-ups in the race for the play-offs.

"It’s a big game every week at the moment," said the Munster head coach.

"We’re halfway through a 10-game block. We’ve got to crack on, a massive game in Belfast on Sunday, then we’re at home the week after [against the Emirates Lions on 6 January] and then we go to Europe again.

"I’m not even going to talk about Europe, just about this game in Belfast on Sunday."

Rowntree cut a frustrated figure after the St Stephen's Day derby with Leinster, where Munster led 14-6 early in the second half, only for the visitors to score twice from tap-and-go penalties while down to 14 players.

Asked what the message was to his players following Max Deegan’s sin-binning, Rowntree replied: "Don’t let them score! And crucially not to take your foot off the gas.

"They don’t need those messages but that shows the maturity and the classiness of that team that the 14 men can still knock us back to our five-metre line.

"We’ll have to look at stopping the teams doing that."

Despite falling to a 10th defeat in 11 games against Leinster, Monday’s game felt like another step forward for Munster but Rowntree was unable to look past their defending for Scott Penny and Dan Sheehan's tries, something which must drastically improve if they are to avenge their home defeat to Ulster at the end of October.

"Several aspects around our