There was no attempt to paint this as a moral victory – they are surely beyond that given their status as IRC champions – but this was encouraging in its own way after their defeat of Leinster in a league semi-final at the same venue last May.

“It is shifting,” said the head coach after a hugely entertaining game in front of almost 50,000 people at the Aviva Stadium. We proved that in May and that was a fully loaded team they had there [tonight] and we could have beat them.

“We could have beat them. A lot of that is in our control and we will have a look at that. We have to build momentum. We have a huge game in Cork next Friday night now against Glasgow.

“We’ve got some battered young and old bodies to look after and we will move forward but I take an immense amount of pride for the stack of things we did well in that game.” Munster were in the perfect position midway through the first-half until Tadhg Beirne threw a risky offload that fell to the turf and allowed Jamison Gibson-Park to hoof it on and win the chase to the try line for an easy seven points.

It was the only points they conceded while Rory Scannell was in the sinbin but further tries from Dan Sheehan, shortly before the break, and Jordan Larmour, after 66 minutes, ultimately made the win safe for the hosts.

“I thought it was a hell of a game,” said Rowntree. “We will look at ourselves, our composure when we get near the opposition try line. We were held for a goal line drop out early in the game and if we had scored there it changes the context of the next quarter.

“There’s elements of the third quarter as well that we will look at what we can do better on the opposition try line, look at those chances and where we can make better decisions. But that was a proper team, 50,000 people at the Aviva, and I’m immensely proud of our performance.” Leinster failed to make the most of numerous visits to the Munster 22 and they were uncommonly sloppy with ball in hand in the first quarter and at other times throughout but the only try they coughed up was a brilliant opener finished by Craig Casey.

In that, Leo Cullen can be very happy.

“Defensively I thought we stood up well. They had a couple of break outs and we had some chances and it was only until Jordan scored and we went eight points clear at that stage.

“We had other chances to score again but we just didn’t take them. It was a bit of that. It was toing and froing wasn’t it?” Cullen had 15 Ireland internationals in his starting XV and will know that they need to improve collectively on this evidence and he is now looking at an interesting scenario at out-half after a night when the retired Johnny Sexton was introduced to the crowd.

Ross Byrne started at ten but lasted just six minutes before exiting with an arm injury picked up in attempting to stop Casey’s try. We await word on the seriousness of that but Ciaran Frawley slipped in brilliantly in his place.

“Ciaran stepped in well. I thought he was excellent. Controlled the game. Even though he was played at 15 at the start of the season for us, the way roles are, particularly with someone like Ciaran, he’s comfortable stepping up as that first receiver.”