Van Graan is pleased to see some signs of Munster improvement
CONOR MURRAY bagged a couple of tries as Munster finally picked up their first inter-pro win of the season following a frustrating Christmas. Defeats to Leinster and Ulster saw Johann van Graan’s side stutter in recent weeks, but a week out from their vital Champions Cup tussle with Racing 92 in Paris, Munster found form again. After a solid firsthalf display the magnitude of this defeat was perhaps a little severe on Connacht, but they were well outclassed after the break. Two Jack Carty penalties kept Connacht in touch at the break, but Munster added to Darren O’Shea’s effort and pulled clear thanks to tries from Andrew Conway, Keith Earls and Conor Murray (twice) to win 39-13. Munster will be worried to have seen their scrum bettered with a hefty French pack to face next weekend, but after his side’s bonus-point win, Van Graan (right) knows that improvement is required across the board. ‘I think it was kind of a 60-minute performance. You also have to give credit to Connacht. They came out fighting as well,’ said Van Graan. ‘Maybe the score ballooned a bit at the end, but we will take our tries, take our bonus point, enjoy the win tonight and go right back to zero on Tuesday morning and start planning for the next one. ‘Europe’s a totally different competition. We’re playing against a side that’s got a different complexity about them. ‘You just have to look at the game earlier in the season. That was no score at half time, they play the game a lot different to what we faced over the past few weeks so I don’t think this game will have any bearing on next Sunday at all.’ According to CJ Stander, who captained Munster on Saturday, the province were delighted to end that poor festive run and will try use this win as a spur going into the Europe. ‘Losing is a habit,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t matter on the scoreboard if you lose momentum and lose the contact area that’s going to keep on going; hopefully this can push us on, we can go to Paris and push on from what we have here. This is going to give is a bump and we just need to make sure that all the boys are
fresh going into Sunday.’ A big problem for Munster has been discipline, however after a poor opening half where they conceded eight penalties, they kept their bibs clean entirely for the second half. It was Connacht who fell foul to referee David Wilkinson as Quinn Roux was sin-binned for a rash tip tackle on Keith Earls, and Connacht coach Kieran Keane admitted his team struggled in that period. A record victory over Ulster was a great start to their inter-pros, but it was followed by defeats to Leinster and Munster, an intense run of games that tested the depths of their squad. ‘Is it a big ask? Yes it is, particularly for us,’ said Keane, whose side meet Worcester Warriors in the Challenge Cup next weekend. ‘But I am not here to make excuses. We are dealt those cards and we knew what was needed. We had to take out some very influential players from our group and we gave the opportunities to some young ones. ‘It will hold us in good stead on the positive side. We got a bang on the nose tonight and we just have to recover from it. ‘We were well and truly bullied around in a number of areas. ‘We probably got hurt by the yellow card. We [conceded] 14 points during that yellow. And they opened us up. I think we got shocked by that a little bit. It was a tough day for them young fellas.’