Munster secured a fifth-place finish in the BKT United Rugby Championship with a superb come-from-behind draw against Cell C Sharks.
The two points gained, after clawing their way back from a 22-3 deficit, pushed Munster ahead of the Bulls, who hammered Leinster earlier.
A defeat with no bonus points would have put Munster in danger of missing out on Champions Cup rugby next season but they will regard it as a job well done as they also avoided another trip down to South Africa in the quarter-finals.
They will now play Glasgow Warriors away in the knock-out stages.
It was also Siya Kolisi's Kings Park send-off but that was marred by the Sharks collapse and personal disappointment after he limped off early.
Kolisi, who will join Racing 92 after the World Cup, watched all but eight minutes of the draw from the stands after suffering a significant injury to his right knee, incurred during a tackle by Calvin Nash.
The second half will have been a hard watch for the South Africa captain as having seen the Sharks ease to a 19-point lead, Munster then staged a fightback ignited by a penalty try.
Nash and Conor Murray added further tries and Munster staged a final assault that ended with them being held up over the line in overtime but the draw was enough to lift them above the Bulls into fifth place.
Once Kolisi had been patched up for an aborted attempt at playing on, a short-range maul allowed Bongi Mbonambi to peel free on the blindside to touch down.
The Sharks added a contentious second when Werner Kok rolled his way over the whitewash but the try was approved by the TMO.
For all their success in finding the line, the Durban-based team were losing key players at a worrying rate as fly-half Curwin Bosch followed Kolisi into the stands, also with a knee injury.
Unperturbed, the Sharks kept on coming with number eight Sikhumbuzo Notshe the next to capitalise on a line-out maul following a strong carry by Mbonambi.
With wing Shane Daly in the sin-bin, Munster were up against it and they entered half-time 19-3 down without firing a shot.
Their outlook soon improved when replacement wing Aphelele Fassi was sin-binned for offside, in the process conceding a penalty try that offered a glimmer of hope.
Munster quickly saw the extra man wiped out when captain Peter O’Mahony was shown a yellow card for escalating a scuffle.
But an opportunist try by Nash tilted the game on its axis and when Murray went over at the end of a maul for a try converted by Ben Healy, the score was level at 22-22.
The visitors introduced Keith Earls for his 200th Munster cap but the Ireland wing only last a few minutes before being withdrawn due to injury.
Munster almost snatched a famous victory, just three weeks after a big Champions Cup loss here, as they poured forward in the closing stages but could not finish the job.
