Historic progress but lots still to improve
AWEEKEND for the purists albeit another memorable one for the Irish provinces. For the second successive round, Leinster, Munster, Ulster and Connacht swept the board across Europe.
The reward is all four Irish teams progressing to the knockout stages for the first time in history.
This was not a repeat of the allaction attacking endeavours of round five, however. Last weekend was about dogging it out and getting the job done.
Save for Leinster, who looked comfortable throughout their 39-17 win at Wasps, the rest of their provincial brethren had to fight all the way. Ulster staged a remarkable second-half fightback at Welford Road to claim a nail-biting 14-13 result while Connacht triumphed at Bordeaux thanks to Jack Carty’s late intercept. No one did it tougher than Munster, though.
Saturday night was all set up for a big display at Thomond Park, but it never materialised. Instead, the hosts were forced to live off scraps and defend for their lives against a ruthlessly-efficient Exeter Chiefs side.
The post-match stats said it all about this Saturday night slugfest. Munster had 36 per cent possession and 35 per cent territory and were forced to make a whopping 192 tackles over the course of 80 brutal minutes.
It took a late long-range Joey Carbery penalty, and some crucial defensive interventions from Tadhg Beirne and Billy Holland, to get Munster home.
They will park this off-colour performance and look forward to a quarter-final meeting with Edinburgh at Murrayfield at the end of March. Whether that transpires as a ‘home’ fixture for the Scots remains to be seen. No doubt Munster fans will travel to Edinburgh in their droves for that one.
That meeting will be a record 18th last eight appearance for the province in Europe’s top-flight competition.
It was put to a relieved Johann van Graan after Saturday’s win if he felt his Munster side were better equipped this season after falling at the semifinal stage in the past two editions of the tournament.
‘I’d like to think so,’ he said.
‘I think the way that we dealt with the pressure over the last four weeks was pretty special. It was all different kinds of games. I thought the Leinster game provided a different kind of pressure and one that we held our composure in terms of our discipline.
‘The Connacht game was one we needed to win away from home in terms of our confidence and of playing well away and I thought we did that and I thought the Gloucester game was one of those games where everything clicked.
‘This one was a pressure cooker, there is obviously such a long way to go in this competition. Now a two-month break, 11 lads will go away now (with Ireland) but we’ve got to keep improving, we’ve got to keep working on our fitness and our individual skills. The guys that stay behind will need to improve again. ‘Hopefully we get out of the Six Nations and then once we reassemble somewhere close to the end of March, it’s literally going to be three training sessions and then we’re into a quarter final so that’s going to be pretty important. We’ll just take it day for day and enjoy tonight first. Like I said, when you open your eyes tomorrow morning, you reflect and then we take it from there.’
Leinster can certainly reflect on a promising campaign thus far. They made light work of Wasps yesterday to secure a quarter-final spot on their home patch.
Ulster will be paying a visit that weekend after their last-gasp heroics at Leicester. Not for the first time, John Cooney proved the match-winner. The scrum-half was sprung from the bench with 30 minutes to go at Welford Road and the Dubliner duly steered his side to a memorable comeback win.
This could be a big few months for Cooney with Luke McGrath and Kieran Marmion currently out of the Ireland picture with injuries. The 28-year-old now has a prime opportunity to move up the national pecking order.
Speaking of late cameos, Jack Carty capped off a dream week by scoring the winning try at the Stade Chaban Delmas.
The Athlone man was a surprise call-up to Joe Schmidt’s Six Nations squad last week and came off the bench to score the winning try against Bordeaux-Begles.
Off all the 25 omitted players that Schmidt name-checked in last week’s press releases, Matt Healy’s name was conspicuous by its absence. After rattling off virtually two starting line-ups of unlucky omissions, Schmidt simply referred to ‘Connacht’s back three’
That would be Matt Healy, Tiernan O’Halloran and Cian Kelleher. Kelleher is heading back to Leinster next season in a bid to get back on the national radar. You’d wonder how long the likes of Healy and O’Halloran will hang around if they feel that Test rugby is unrealistic. There would be no shortage of English and French interest.
For now, the provinces can reflect on a job well done, but they will need to roll up their sleeves again in March.