Once again, van Graan stressed that “whether it is PRO14 or Europe, you follow due processes every week. That’s why there is a citing commissioner. It goes for both teams after the game and we followed our normal process”, before adding that “there were certain obvious incidents in the game and were pretty evident for all to see”.

At one particularly controversial moment of the game, Munster captain Peter O’Mahony asked referee Wayne Barnes to check as to whether there might have been dangerous play on the part of Castres scrum-half Rory Kockott when his hand came in contact with the face and possibly the eye of Chris Cloete. Barnes declined to examine the situation there and then, stating instead that the matter could be referred to the citing commissioner.

“Every game of rugby is different,” said van Graan. “Things happen in a game and the spirit of rugby is important and the values of the game. I’m proud of the way our players behaved on the field. You’ve got to adapt in the game and with certain incidents, we didn’t adapt. I’m a believer in this game, that is why I am in it. You play it to the best of your ability and we respect our opponents every single week.

“After the game, you look at the game and move on. That’s why you have a referee and a team of four and a citing commissioner. As a coach, we have protocols and we do the same this week as we did last week and next week.”

The failure of EPCR and their citing fraternity to take any action has deeply angered all close to the Munster set-up even if they are maintaining their silence on the subject, at least for the moment. And referee Wayne Barnes and his assistants earned the wrath of a multitude of Munster supporters at the game and watching on television for apparently closing their eyes and minds to what was happening.

Apart from the Cloete incident, there was also an extremely dangerous tackle on O’Mahony that escaped with a yellow card even though Barnes stated immediately that the tip was “above horizontal” and the ball was nowhere near the Munster captain when he was clattered. Sammy Arnold also appeared to be the victim of a totally unwarranted attack by a Castres opponent, with the touch judge merely looking on from only a few feet away.

Former Ireland great Brian O’Driscoll maintained “there is no place in the game” for a no-arms, leading with the knees tackle on Andrew Conway after he had just failed to properly ground the ball as he missed out on a try-scoring opportunity.

“Slide tackles are a blight on the game and need to be stamped out,” O’Driscoll added.

“Every week we speak about the referee,” said van Gaan.

I didn’t have an issue with the yellow card (for Niall Scannell), the maul was going forward and it was pulled down.

Castres conceded four penalties for the same infringement and the referee didn’t give them a yellow card or a warning, so we need some clarity on that.

We had our chances to win the game in the backyard of the French champions and when you create so many of those chances... we spoke about it as a group this morning. I’m unhappy we didn’t win, but we got a bonus point which is huge in the context of the group.

While Joey Carbery knocked over four penalty goals, he did miss three others and generally had an unhappy outing, leaving many to wonder why van Graan left it until late in the game before he brought in JJ Hanrahan, who had been Man of the Match against Castres the previous week.

“There is a big spotlight on every 10 in a game of rugby and especially when he is your goal-kicker”, said van Graan.

“He is disappointed, but that’s sport. As a team we win together and we lose together.

“It’s not only the goal-kicker. We own up to the fact we weren’t good enough at the weekend. We created two try-scoring opportunities, one didn’t go our way, one was a forward pass.

“We missed four kicks at goal and if we got one of them we might have won the game.”