A weight was lifted from the shoulders of Munster head coach Clayton McMillan on Saturday night. His side had just booked a place in the quarter-finals of the United Rugby Championship (URC) and also guaranteed qualification for next season’s Champions Cup.Munster stood outside both of those in ninth place when they kicked off against the Lions. However, despite being forced to make three late changes, they did enough to get over the line. They also had to get by with two men in the bin at the same time in the opening half. The 24-17 victory secured their place in the quarter-final, where they will face Bulls in Pretoria on Saturday week, May 30th.That fixture will trigger good memories from three years ago when Munster won away to Glasgow Warriors and Leinster in the knockout stages. They then travelled to South Africa and won the URC by defeating the Stormers in Cape Town.On Saturday night, Munster stayed true to form by doing it the hard way. They had already lost lock Fineen Wycherley and centre Alex Nankivell before the game. Then, in the warm-up, Jack Crowley’s troublesome leg injury flared up again. It meant JJ Hanrahan was drafted in to start just a few minutes before kick-off.It was no surprise that McMillan – in a maiden season that started so well before curve balls came on and off the field – was just relieved to get the job done. Tries from Evan O’Connell, Tom Ahern and Craig Casey helped get them over the line.“Just relief, big pressure coming into a game like this where it’s pretty obvious what we needed to do,” said McMillan.“It was never going to be easy but I thought our guys acquitted themselves well tonight under those circumstances. Tough when we needed to be.“The first 40 minutes, outside of the two yellows, was probably as good as [any] first half . . . we produced this year. We did a lot of good things and [were] probably unlucky not to score a few more points.Munster's Niall Scannell celebrates after Saturday's URC victory against Lions at Thomond Park. Photograph: Dan Clohessy/Inpho “When we reflect on this year, we’ll look at a few moments during the year [that could have gone our way].“We might have done a lot better in the Champions Cup than we did. We’ll give ourselves another chance next year but that’s in the future. That’s the premier competition in this part of the world and it would have been a massive disappointment to not be there.”McMillan said he would now leave it to the match officials to investigate a complaint from Diarmuid Barron. The replacement hooker told Italian referee Andrea Piardi that one of the Lions players had spat in his face in a ruck.The game was held up for several minutes as the match officials investigated, but they were unable to find sufficient evidence. The referee assured Munster captain Casey that it would be further examined after the game.“Ah look, he’s been around a long time and we’re not a team that plays silly buggers, so you’d imagine he felt or he saw what he saw,” added McMillan.“We only have three or four angles available to us. I’m sure others might have a look at it but that’s not our job to do now. Other people will have a look and if there’s something there to see, then they’ll deal with it. If there isn’t, then we’ll move forward.”