Munster's Jack Crowley says the nature of Exeter’s opening Investec Champions Cup win hands the English team momentum ahead of their round-two clash on Sunday.
Rob Baxter’s side found themselves 18-5 down with 21 minutes to play away to Toulon, second in the Top14, but scored two converted tries to snatch a famous victory, 19-18, at Stade Felix Mayol.
Conversely, Graham Rowntree’s men led Bayonne 14-3 in the 46th minute but had to settle for a 17-17 draw against the unfancied European debutants.
"Not many go to Toulon and come back from 18-5," Crowley told RTÉ Sport.
"They’ve played eight games in the Premiership and won five and there’s a lot of changes in their squad and they’ve made it work.
"That’s down to Baxter being a quality coach and making it work.
"It’s something we are familiar with here, you adapt and learn.
"To do that comeback is probably something that [means] they are going to have a lot of momentum coming into this weekend and we are aware of that."
After Thomas Dolhagaray had converted Rémy Baget’s try, Munster had a chance to grab a winner but Crowley’s drop goal skewed wide.
The 23-year-old Ireland out-half revealed that he had lost a boot in the build-up [pictured below].
"I think it came off in a tackle in the phase beforehand," he said.
"It was my standing foot. At the time... you are in the heat of the moment, you are trying to make decisions based on what’s in front of you.
"It was gone but you’ve got to stay in the passage of play.
"I can’t drop out, I need to be able to offer my help. It just came down to a decision of taking a kick and my boot wasn’t on. Ideally it would be but I was happy with my ball drop.
"I struck too early if I’m going to go technical on it but I still should have got it."
Jack O’Donoghue, Diarmuid Barron, Peter O'Mahony and Tadhg Beirne have all led the team this season with Rowntree expected to name O’Mahony’s successor as club captain next week.
Crowley, who has nine Ireland caps and was Andy Farrell’s second choice out-half at the World Cup behind the now retired Johnny Sexton, doesn’t reckon he’s in the mix to take the skipper’s armband for the match at Sandy Park.
"No, no I’m not," he said.
"Well, I don’t know, we haven’t really had that conversation but no, no I’m focusing on what I can do and that’s a decision that will come in due course from people above me."
Meanwhile, defence coach Denis Leamy says they will give O'Mahony as much time as needed to fully recover from a shoulder injury without ruling the Ireland back row out of contention.
"Pete did a little but of training yesterday and we assessed him again this morning," said Leamy.
"It's still a bit away from the game but there’s a couple of more sessions before we fully get on top of whether he’ll be available or not.
"It comes down to the medics and Pete. We’ll give him every chance, there’s obviously some requirements that he has to come through.
"In terms of pain management, we have to see how that progresses. We don’t want to throw him back in and risk him.
"It’s a long season, we’ll just have to suss it out over the next couple of days."
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