Andrew Smith's converted try just before half-time cut the deficit down to 11 points, but Munster's only other scores were two penalties from Ian Keatley in an eventual 31-13 defeat.
And Foley was left ruing his side's inability to curtail Glasgow's running rugby.
"If you allow Glasgow to get into the open field, and time and space, their players will look to get through offloads and run through channels," said Foley.
"We saw that in abundance in the first half and it was just disappointing we didn't control it - because we had prepared for it.
"Being 21-10 down at half-time, it became very important to score first, which we did.
"We took three but you could argue that we should have stayed there and tried to get seven.
"But we went for three and at that stage, the game was in the balance and unfortunately we didn't get to within a score of them.
"If we had done that they might have been catchable but it didn't materialise for us and fair play to them some of their support play and off-loading was second to none."
However, Foley is convinced that the final will be an important lesson learned for future success.
"It's hard enough to get into the top four, never mind winning it. It's about maintaining what we're doing and hopefully building again," he added.
"It's hard to take but a lot of us have been through this situation before."
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