Backport [7.9] Exception during creating new container item when hst:template is not configured

I'm trying to add an component to a container using the channel manager. The component I'm trying to add makes use of the Spring MVC bridge using the SimpleDispatcherHstComponent. This component is responsible for rendering the view thus there is no hst:template configured. However when I add this component, the channel manager looks for the hst:template but can't find it so it throws an exception.

the full exception I'm getting:
[ContainerComponentResource.createContainerItem:121] Exception during creating new container item: {}
javax.jcr.PathNotFoundException: hst:template

The class that causes the error is the ContainerItemRepresentation class. It tries to set the template, but it isn't configured