Paul O'Connell has played his share of big Heineken Cup games for two-time champions, Munster Rugby, but in the wake of the 22-16 quarter-final defeat by Ulster Rugby he couldn't recall ever having to come back from as big a deficit as 19 points.
"It's cup rugby and you just should never be 19 points down and I can't remember that happening to us in all the time I've been with the club. It left us with too much to do and crucially, it gave them a bit of belief," said the captain as he reflected on what was only Munster's second defeat at home in the history of the competition.
"You can't beat yourself in a tournament like this and in a way, that's exactly what we did in the first 20 minutes. Frustratingly, we had more than enough possession to win the game, so to score just one try, that was really disappointing. We didn't make inroads, we weren't accurate enough with the ball and it was also very hard to stop them slowing the ball down.
"In fairness to Ulster, their defence was very good and when they got their opportunities they took them. We did concede a lot of penalties and we chatted to Romain Poite about it, and maybe things changed after about 25 minutes, but some of the penalties were right and maybe some were hard."