Blood and thunder won’t be enough for Munster
‘Leinster were rattled by their feral hosts in 2018’
GRAHAM Rowntree was in bullish form earlier this week. Nothing focuses the mind in the Munster camp like a looming encounter with their arch rivals and, if the demeanour of their forwards coach was anything to go by, we should expect a big performance tonight.
‘Why not us?’ came the reply from Rowntree when the scale of the looming task was laid bare.
Leo Cullen’s all-conquering squad are on a run of 21 victories, in all competitions, and, in many quarters, they have already been crowned Pro14 champions for the third successive season.
Their depth is unrivalled. James Ryan, Dan Leavy and Tadhg Furlong are still a few weeks away from match fitness, but Cullen can still field a matchday 23 laced with quality and Test-level experience. Josh van der Flier must settle for a place on the bench while Rhys Ruddock and Max Deegan are surplus to requirements. Ciaran Frawley was exceptional against Ulster last weekend, but the talented back will be watching from home.
What’s more, Leinster’s frontliners are fresh after a week off while Munster’s best and brightest were embroiled in a messy affair with Connacht last Sunday.
‘We’ll be battle-hardened,’ came the riposte from Rowntree when the challenges of that five-day turnaround were raised.
Munster lost RG Snyman after seven minutes in the corresponding fixture two weeks ago. Rowntree, again, was quick to highlight the performances of Tadhg Beirne and Fineen Wycherley last time out.
‘Tadhg had a dream game back, Fin’s one for the future,’ he said.
Rolling out that duo again seemed a no-brainer but Wycherley has been demoted to the bench to accommodate Billy Holland at lock, a move that would signal Munster’s intention to go after Leinster’s lineout again after getting plenty of change from that tactic two weeks ago. Cullen, accordingly, has recalled Devin Toner, Ireland’s foremost lineout technician, to fix that issue. The chess pieces keep moving.
You can understand why Munster appealed so much to Rowntree, the hard-nosed, cauliflowereared, former Leicester and England prop. The Tigers were defined by the same blue-collar, chip on the shoulder mentality which drove them to great things against seemingly more illustrious and resourced opposition. And Rowntree seems to be relishing it.
He and Peter O’Mahony will ensure that Munster are up for the battle. There’s rarely any question about that. Getting under Leinster’s skin has worked in the past. Most notably back in 2018 at a heaving Thomond Park when Leinster — and Johnny Sexton especially — were utterly rattled by the feral hosts. The visitors had three men carded, with James Lowe sent off, during a tempestuous first half as Munster bullied their way to a rare win.
Blood and thunder will not be enough tonight, however. It’s the reason why Stephen Larkham was drafted in last year to oversee the Munster attack. Fire and fury will only get you so far these days. Evolving their style of play remains a work in progress, but there have been some promising signs on that front in recent times.
Still, the odds are firmly stacked in Leinster’s favour. Then again, they have been for quite some time. This is the third year in a row where Munster have met Leinster at this juncture and they desperately need to make a statement. That era of dominance is fast becoming folklore, rather than a memory.
It’s telling that two of Leinster’s backrowers this evening — Caelan Doris and Will Connors — couldn’t recall the trophy-laden years of the Declan Kidney/Ronan O’Gara/Paul O’Connell era when quizzed about it in interviews recently.
Munster don’t need to be reminded about their continual failures in semi-finals, the fact that they last won a trophy in 2011 or the excellence of their noisy neighbours in the east.
All those factors should ensure a typically robust display from Johann van Graan’s men tonight and there is cause for optimism.
Their backrow and midfield combinations look especially strong while Andrew Conway and Keith Earls are the two best finishers in the country.
The likes of CJ Stander, Damian de Allende and Chris Farrell should provide plenty of gain-line busting thrust and Cullen has taken note. Connors, the choptackling sensation, has been retained at openside, seemingly with a remit of scything down Munster’s big carriers at source.
The pest-like qualities of Beirne, Stander and O’Mahony at the breakdown will also have concerned Leinster’s coaching staff. Stander, in particular, was Pocock-esque in the previous fixture, winning four turnovers, in an eye-catching performance.
You’d imagine Leinster’s have concocted a plan to deal with that. The retention of Jordan Larmour at full-back and the promotion of the pacy Hugo Keenan to the wing suggests that the hosts are going to get to the edges quickly and often. Leinster thrive on pace and rhythm while Munster will look to slow them down and make it a dogfight at the breakdown.
You need a world class tight five — and plenty of support on the bench — to succeed at that tactic for 80 minutes, and the fear for Munster is they are still lacking in that area.
Once again, you just feel that Leinster will find that edge in the final quarter and reality will bite for Munster once more.