BATH head coach Jon Callard was left to rue a terrible last ten minutes as his side conceded 17 unanswered points to slip to a heavy defeat.

The setback in Limerick means that the odds are now stacked against Bath as they bid to qualify for the quarter finals.

"I'm desperately disappointed," said Callard. "Not many sides come here and have a sniff of winning and I thought with ten minutes to go we had a great opportunity.

"We'd clawed our way back into it. The spirit was there but that final ten minutes is a bit of a blur really. What happened was hugely disappointing after we'd worked extremely hard.

"In that situation, you secure possession and work your way out of trouble. The mistakes we made were schoolboyish."

The Bath work rate was never really in question, but the lack of scoring opportunities was clearly a problem.

"Their defence was such that they didn't allow us to create much," Callard said. "But we showed tremendous patience.

"I'm just frustrated and the players are as well they know they've worked hard for 70 minutes and I really felt we had a great chance."

It's not all doom and gloom at the Rec though as Callard feels the players can pull some positives from the defeat.

He was concerned at the amount of line-out ball lost, but pleased with the scrummage.

He said: "Our 100 per cent didn't work today. To lose four straight in a row is totally unacceptable. It's suicidal."

"The scrummage was fairly solid and our ability under immense pressure at times to play out of defence, was good," said Callard.

"Matt Perry was exceptional under the high ball and the back three worked hard."

Callard was also quick to praise the 'Munster experience'.

The former England international said: "It's part of rugby's education. You're not educated in rugby until you've been to Munster and experienced it.

"It's absolutely wonderful, the crowd and their knowledge, appreciation and respect. If only rugby was like that all the time."

Bath now aim to reverse the result next weekend when they welcome Muster to the Rec and Callard is under no illusions about what is required.

He said: "We've got some work to do, we've got a mountain to climb and if we're going to go anywhere in this group now it's backs-to-the-wall time.

"We have to re-group collectively and think how to approach it. We need to do something on our own patch.

"We owe it to our supporters who've travelled all this way this weekend and we owe it to ourselves."