It’s a marathon not a race.

Munster secured their second successive bonus-point win yesterday evening against the Cheetah, to put them top of their PRO14 conference.

Director of Rugby Rassie Erasmus however, isn’t getting ahead of himself. While he’s delighted with Munster’s start, he knows all too well how things can work out if they think ‘they’re now pretty good.’

“We saw last year Scarlets lost their first three games and smashed us in the final,” Erasmus told us after the match

The South African says last season he didn’t really rotate and that Munster just wanted to put their best foot forward and see how far they could get in the competitions. This season will be a completely different story. Even though Erasmus will not be around for all of it.

“The most important thing I learned last season is it’s 47 weeks and it’s very far from May next year. Managing players coming back, keeping players fresh, always mixing it up and building squad depth is one of the things we’re trying to do while not losing games. It’s nice to have 10 points but the reality check will always come if you think you’re pretty good now, which we’re far from.”

“We didn’t really rotate last year. I tried to put the best squad out there to see how far we could go in the competition.”

‘We need to keep guys fresh for 47 weeks. That’s the big lesson I learned from last year.”