James Coughlan, who captained Munster to their 5-22 defeat at the hands of Glasgow Warriors last Saturday, was left infuriated by the display.

Munster’s shock defeat is their first at home in the competition and comes after a quarterfinal victory in the European Cup against Toulouse.

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Coughlan was quick to turn his attention to the future, which holds trips to Connacht and Edinburgh, before hosting fellow title rivals Ulster on the final regular season weekend.

Munster are also flying the only Pro12 flag in the European Cup and have a semifinal to look forward to, against reigning champions Toulon.

And Coughlan believes even the slightest slip-up in either competition will see their hopes of silverware disappear.

“The pressure is on us now,” he told the Irish Examiner.

“In one sense that’s a great thing because we’ve a cup run now from here on, if we win all our games then we win two competitions, if we don’t we probably won’t.

“The important thing is now that we bounce back and get a reaction and turn up to Connacht and show them the respect they deserve, and maybe show ourselves a bit more respect.

“We worked bloody hard all year and to leave yourselves down is tough, it leaves a bitter taste.”

The experienced loose forward is not expecting to see a repeat of Saturday’s display between now and the end of the season.

“We’ll have to have a good look at ourselves individually,” he added.

“You can’t turn up there half-cocked.

“To be fair to Glasgow they played as if they had something to play for and we didn’t.

“It came down to basics. You have to win the collisions.

“You have to win the breakdown and have to win possession in the right areas and I would say looking on Monday that Glasgow would have won every single one of those.

“Glasgow certainly didn’t care that we beat the hell out of Toulouse last week and they turned up like it.

“Maybe we fell a small bit in love with ourselves and lost focus, so I suppose there’s nothing but a kick up the backside to keep you going and we certainly got one of those.”