Through a combination of poor decision making and bad look, Alan Quinlan believes Munster's best interests will be served in diverting their energy away from trying to make project players work for them. 

Succumbing to an exit at the pool stages of the Heineken Champions Cup after reaching three semi-finals in successive years, Quinlan, speaking on Monday's OTB AM, argued for reasons to be cheerful if the Irish province embraced an alternative approach to squad building.

"There are some good, promising young players there," assured Quinlan of Munster's prospects. "That is the key now to integrate them.

"When I vented my frustration with Munster in 2016, I didn't see this group of players that are coming through."

It remains a bugbear of Quinlan's, however, that the transition from academy hopeful into a first-team regular is, perhaps, unnecessarily complicated.

"It's nothing personal against any of the overseas players," explained Quinlan, "but there are a number of them who are not regular starters and the impact they're making would need to be bigger.

"Obviously, in the last couple of years, some of them were project players and you're not going to get every project player right."

A concerted attempt on behalf of Irish Rugby to recruit promising young players from abroad with the intention that they one day play for Ireland, the short-term nature of the previous residency rule has seen the likes of Bundee Aki, CJ Stander and, perhaps most controversially, Jean Kleyn make the breakthrough in recent years.

For Quinlan, the presence of superfluous foreign players initially thought to have international ambitions with Ireland, but have since been downgraded, is keeping young Irish players one step further away from the elite level of the club game.

World Cup winner Damian de Allende of South Africa will join Munster next season. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

Although Sunday's final Heineken Champions Cup clash with Ospreys in Limerick allowed for some experimentation on Johann van Grann's behalf, the failure of certain overseas players to assure themselves of a first-team spot was clearer in the previous clash with Racing 92.

Of the five overseas players who featured for Munster in Paris last weekend, two (Arno Botha (28) & Chris Cloete (29)) had to content themselves with places on the bench.

As far as Alan Quinlan is concerned, such a scenario should not manifest itself and only serves to hamper the development of young Munster players desperate to make the breakthrough.

"If you're bringing in three or four overseas players," he argued, "they have to be world-class at this stage."

In signing World Cup winner Damien De Allende, Munster will be hoping that the Springbok who arrives next season can deliver on this standard.

An indication of where a system that seeks to develop project players from abroad can go wrong, the former Munster and Ireland international Quinlan was careful to make exceptions for a player such as Tyler Bleyendaal whose development has been ultimately halted by injury.

Watch back Alan Quinlan's review of the rugby weekend on Monday's OTB AM here.

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