O'Mahony 'not getting carried away'

Peter O’Mahony praised Munster's "mature performance" in Saturday's 32-7 Champions Cup bonus-point victory over Racing 92 in the European Rugby Champions Cup.

The match was a rescheduled tie from matchday one, after the original match in October was postponed following the tragic death of head coach Anthony Foley.

First-half tries from Simon Zebo, Stander and Andrew Conway helped the Irish province to a 25-0 half-time lead, then Niall Scannell’s 56th-minute try sealed the bonus point for Munster.

Racing, who played a weakened team as they were already out of contention for the knockout stages, scored a consolation try through flanker Matthieu Voisin with 17 minutes remaining.

Munster top Champions Cup Pool 1 by three points from Glasgow Warriors, who they face at Scotstoun next Saturday on matchday five.

"It was a big win, it’s up there, but we’re not going to get carried away. Anywhere in France, especially against a team as passionate and with as much history as Racing, you’d be very proud of the boys. It was quite a mature performance," Munster captain O'Mahony said.

"But there’s a lot of work to be done, especially with three big European games to play in as many weeks. We’ve to recover and then work hard to prepare for a side as good as Glasgow are."

Man-of-the-match CJ Stander says Munster are still working to the framework set up by Foley during pre-season, and praised director of rugby Rassie Erasmus and his coaching team for their work developing the squad.

"We always keep this emotion in the back of our heads, but we’ve been working hard from pre-season onwards. We have good structures; Axel left a lot of what we’re working on, how we want to play," Stander said.

"Our coaches – Rassie, Jacques [Nienaber], Fla [Jerry Flannery], Felix [Jones] – have got good plans, and we just want to go out on the pitch and play for them. From a team point of view, everyone worked very hard all week. We said we’d need work-rate and to stand up for each other in this match and honour the big man, as we try to do every week."

Stander admits the return to Paris for the first time since Foley's death three months ago was a tough emotional experience.

"Coming back to Paris after his death, you talk about it, the emotion of it, and it catches you again," he continued.

"It’s tough; you remember from last time, you get very emotional. You try to hide it, but it’s into you and luckily everyone’s in the same boat. I think we’ve been dealing with it quite well the last few weeks."

Photo (Inpho/ James Crombie)

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