Penalties from Bruce Reihana, Shane Geraghty and Stephen Myler were the replies to four Ronan O'Gara efforts and the point, which left Saints on 19 following their six pool matches, leaves the men in black, green and gold still in contention for a Heineken Cup quarter final place.

Afterwards the talk was as much about the atmosphere as well as the performance, and for Reihana, who has played in many big games for the Saints, it was a memorable occasion.

"It was very special," he said. "We couldn't hear a thing! The atmosphere was electric, and you certainly knew it when you were going for a high ball; the crowd was going for it. It was special to be a part of, and a shame that we couldn't hold on to the ball and play a bit more exciting rugby."

Scrum-half Lee Dickson agreed, and said that the three-point defeat was a sign of how far the team have progressed since their Round 2 battering in Perpignan.

"Playing at Wembley was massive but everyone's a lot closer at Thomond," he said. "I don't think I've played in a better atmosphere in my life. You can really hear the roar. But we could still hear our supporters on the pitch as well.

"We were one scrum away from a penalty try. But that's rugby - you win some, you lose some. We came up a little bit short but we can take a lot out of this. Not a lot of teams come to Munster and lose by only three points, and dominate 40 minutes of the game. Fair play to them, they held us out, and both defences were amazing.

"At Perpignan we were completely outplayed. We didn't turn up. There were a lot of questions asked about us when we come back to Northampton. Four months on and we've come away from Munster losing by only three points. We've come a long way but we're not getting ahead of ourselves. We've got big games ahead."

"We'll learn loads," Reihana added. "We didn't control the ball very well or get momentum, which was down to a few mistakes. And if we do get that opportunity in the quarter finals we'll try to put those lessons into action."

Director of rugby Jim Mallinder was proud of the effort and said that the Thomond Park experience will be a benefit to the team going forward.

"It was a good day, from the build-up through to the game itself, when the noise levels out there were incredible," Mallinder told the BBC. "I think the experience of playing somewhere like this will benefit our players enormously.

"We were pleased with the effort. It's shown that we can come away to some of the top European teams and compete. We're a little bit disappointed because we had a number of opportunities to win the game and tonight we didn't take them. It was one of those games that was tight and on another day we would have won.

"We go back to the series of scrums on their line when they were down to seven men and we missed a couple of kicks, and if they'd gone over we'd have won the game. Those scrums were a defining moment. The referee said that if they were penalised again he would have gone underneath the sticks, so it was a right decision for Dylan to make. Unfortunately we didn't get the lucky break.

"Our breakdown work was very good. We did scrummage very well and put them under a lot of pressure in the lineout. We got into them and credit to the lads for doing that. In the second half we got on top a little bit. It's a game of close opportunities and we didn't quite take them."

This weekend two years ago the Saints had just had an away match at Plymouth Albion. From there to Thomond Park, and a possible Heineken Cup quarter final place, is a long way in both metaphorical and physical terms and Mallinder added that the game could be a major landmark on the journey.

"This Munster team have been building for around eight to ten years," he commented. "We've come together and are in the early stages. For some of our players this is new to them. They haven't played many international games, and certainly not played many top-class Heineken Cup games. So it is a learning curve and hopefully we'll learn quickly."

As far as qualification for the knock out stages is concerned, things are now out of the Saints' hands.

"We've done everything we can," Mallinder said. "We prepared really well, we gave it our best shot and came up just short. We'll sit back and watch the other games with interest."