The European dream has faded for another season and this first defeat to a South African side at Thomond Park on Saturday has put a serious dent in their URC play-off ambitions. Defeat to an in-form Cardiff in Wales this Friday could well be a mortal blow, not only to hopes of knockout rugby in this campaign but also to Munster’s continuing participation in the Champions Cup. Keagan Johannes’s late penalty in Limerick added to the gloom following the previous weekend’s 47-29 quarter-final exit from Europe’s premier club competition at Bordeaux-Begles. Results elsewhere on Saturday had sent Ian Costello’s side tumbling from fifth to eighth place, the final qualifying spot for both the URC knockout rounds and securing a Champions Cup berth for 2025-26. A losing bonus point lifted them back up to seventh with three rounds of the regular season remaining, separated from the eighth-placed Stormers only by the narrowest of (negative) points difference margins after 15 rounds of inconsistent performances. A further six teams below them lie within nine points of Munster’s position while the gap between them and fourth has grown to the same margin, making the stated aim of a home quarter-final draw on the last weekend in May even more of a long shot. “If you win tonight there would have been a small bit of breathing space,” interim head coach Costello said. “I know the last couple of weeks was fantastic in terms of some massive games in the Champions Cup but this is our bread and butter, we want to be in Europe. I’ve said it to you guys already, we’ve got to be in the top eight and not looking beyond that. “We’ve put ourselves in a very difficult position now but we’ve got to go and win in Cardiff next Friday night. We’ve three games left, two of them at home and we’re going to need to win, potentially, all three, definitely at least two. “So it has to a bounce back next Friday night.” Such has been Munster’s failure to back up winning performances this season that the prospect of winning their final three league games, all of them against play-off rivals, appears remote and that despite home games against Ulster and Benetton following the trip to Cardiff. They have managed back-to-back URC wins just once this season, against the Dragons and Scarlets in rounds 10 and 11, though they have also recorded consecutive victories over the Lions and Stade Francais before Christmas, as well as Connacht and La Rochelle in their past four matches. Those latter games arguably represent the high water-mark of Munster performances this season but a deeply disappointing first 50 minutes in Bordeaux and now this defeat in a low-quality contest with the Bulls have undone all the positivity victories in Mayo and France created just weeks ago. Saturday evening’s tussle with the third-placed South Africans was poor fare for the 14,733 souls who braved a rainy day and forecasts of far worse to witness a procession of missed Munster opportunities. Johannes’ 72nd-minute penalty eventually broke the deadlock following first-half tries from Bulls’ back-rower Marcel Coetzee and Munster full-back Thaakir Abrahams and a penalty apiece in either half from Johann Goosen and Jack Crowley. Nor did some bizarre officiating from referee Andrea Piardi and his team lift the sense of frustration as both sides huffed and puffed for long periods, unable to break down the other’s defences. The officials’ confusion surrounded injuries to starting tighthead prop Oli Jager on 14 minutes and then his replacement Stephen Archer 38 minutes later that left Munster incorrectly short-handed between the 52nd and 65th minutes. Archer had replaced Jager when he was removed for a Head Injury Assessment, from which he did not return. When Archer was then injured in the second half, Jager’s HIA was not taken into account and with both named tightheads out of action, Piardi called for uncontested scrums and ordered an extra forward off, back-rower Alex Kendellen. It took 13 minutes of pitchside negotiations for Munster to make their protests stick and for Kendellen to return to the game, leaving the Italian referee to explain the situation to both captains, Tadhg Beirne and Ruan Nortje, including a remarkable admission that were “too many rules” in rugby. “Okay, some problem from the outside and I will try to explain it. “There are too many rules in this game,” Piardi told them. “So, the first injury (Jager) by Munster was for HIA. So, you shouldn’t go to 14 (players). So now we play like this, we stay with the 13-13 (scoreline at the time), which is fine. “But now I am asking another player (Kendellen) to come in, okay, and we play 15 against 15 because the first injury was HIA. Okay? Now, we still have uncontested scrums for 15 minutes.” Whether or not it made a difference to the outcome we will never know but while Munster’s interim head coach Costello was frustrated by the unsatisfactory process, he was not prepared to use it an excuse for his side’s shortcomings, not least continuing lineout issues which for the second match in a row undermined any hopes of Munster getting a positive outcome. Costello had bemoaned his side’s lack of accuracy in both the lineout and ball-handling for allowing Bordeaux to open a 29-3 lead inside 34 minutes at Stade Chaban-Delmas and he cut a frustrating figure once more inside Thomond Park. Injuries from the Champions Cup defeat had denied Munster the services of Diarmuid Barron, Gavin Coombes, John Hodnett and Calvin Nash, while they also lost Craig Casey to illness and Peter O’Mahony to a tight hamstring in the pre-match warm-up on Saturday. “Some of them were definitely very short-term. I think Gavin and Calvin will definitely be okay and then with a bit of luck, Barnesy (Barron) and (John Hodnett) they will be in and around that two-to-three-week time period. “We picked up a couple tonight around tighthead in particular, so thankfully with someone like John Ryan ready to go as well and we will assess Stevie. Oli Jager will definitely be out for 12 days now, so we will assess Stevie over the next 48 hours.” MUNSTER: T Abrahams; S O’Brien, T Farrell, A Nankivell (R Scannell, 73), A Smith (D Kilgallen, 52); J Crowley, C Murray (P Patterson, 73); J Wycherley, N Scannell (M Donnelly, 60), O Jager (S Archer, 14 – HIA; L Barron, 52); J Kleyn (F Wycherley, 66), T Beirne - captain; T Ahern (R Quinn, 66), J O’Donoghue, A Kendellen (withdrawn, 52-65). BULLS: D Williams; S de Klerk, D Kriel, H Vorster, C Moodie; J Goosen (K Johannes, 65), E Papier (Z Burger, 65-79); J Wessels (S Matanzima, 68), A van der Merwe (J Grobbelaar, 57), W Louw (M Smith, 57); C Wiese (JF van Heerden, 64), R Nortje – captain; M Coetzee, J Kirsten, C Hanekom. Yellow card: E Papier 44-54 Replacements not used: N Carr, S Jacobs. Referee: Andrea Piardi (Italy)