Connacht coach Pat Lam says his side’s nightmare trip to Siberia earlier in November steeled them for night’s like Saturday in Thomond Park.
Connacht toughed it out against Munster to stay top of the Pro12 table with an 18-12 win last night.
"What I saw out there was exactly what I saw in the Moscow airport. Flight delayed; get on with it. Try conceded; get on with it."
Their victory, the province’s first in 29 years at Thomond Park, came on a rotten night when several big refereeing calls went against them.
“We’ve talked before about all the challenges and learnings we’ve had and probably the obvious one is Siberia and all the challenges we went through there,” said Lam.
Connacht beat Russian side Enisei STM in sub-zero conditions in the European Challenge Cup and then endured a torturous trek home delayed by cancelled flights and horrendous weather.
“That’s two weeks we had to build our resilience and mental toughness because we were going to be challenged,” noted Lam, speaking to RTE Sport.
“We were mightily challenged here; the penalty try was a massive call and gave them a lift, but what I saw out there was exactly what I saw in the Moscow airport.
“Flight delayed; get on with it. Try conceded; get on with it and go back to what we do well. We did that, maintained the pressure and scored a try in the end so tremendously proud of the lads.”
Connacht looked well in control until referee Ben Whitehouse sin-binned captain John Muldoon.
While he could have no arguments with the yellow card, the penalty try award was more than a little harsh.
It helped reduced the deficit to just one point against the run of play, but the visitors won in style when Bundee Aki scored a spectacular late try to seal the deal.
“I said to the boys, what we did made me extremely proud,” said Lam.
“But what we’re doing is just what we do every day in training, we did it last week and in all our games.
“We go about doing our stuff like we do in all our games and we do a lot of stuff on the training ground.
“All we’ve done is get four points, which keeps us top of the table, but we have a short turn-around so now we’ll focus on Cardiff.”
Connacht travel to Cardiff to face the Blues next Friday, while Munster are also in Wales to take on the Dragons, though they aren’t in action until Sunday.
Reds coach Anthony Foley was also keen to put Saturday’s match behind him and concentrate on the next Pro12 challenge.
“The better team won,” he said. “They played really well, particularly in the first half, and we found it hard to get our hands on the ball.
“From that they built a lead and it’s bitterly disappointing. We’ll take it on the chin because we have to move on to next week and make sure we kick on from here.”
