Munster primed for cold revenge in heated rivalry

Interprovincials are colourful spectacles; many of the actors end up black and blue.

Perhaps the staging of this fixture on New Year’s Day was the bloodiest of them all this term; two of the participants had already lucklessly fallen before the referee began the contest.

Munster were in a familiar mid-season morass on New Year’s Day; already wobbling in Europe while they returned home from hapless defeat in Galway with enough injured players to fill a match-day squad.

Two of them prompted enough anger within the visiting ranks that there will presumably remain some lingering ill feeling bubbling beneath the surface tonight.

Graham Rowntree questioned just how the removals of Oli Jager and Jack O’Donoghue on a pair of first-half stretchers did not prompt anything more than peremptory inquiry.

For their part, Connacht were not wildly amused at a late clean-out on Mack Hansen which has effectively denied Irish rugby his services since.

Their other winger, Byron Ralston, was later hit with an initial six-week ban for his tackle on O’Donoghue; nobody was cited for taking out his more exalted counterpart.

Blood

There will be blood. Perhaps thunder too as the high pressure builds above; the temperatures will sizzle on the ground.

One might be advised to brace yourself in anticipation but even that may not be enough after a Brace was removed from the tie, Irish whistler Andrew Brace scratched this week with a slight injury.

Welshman Adam Jones is now in charge and we wish him all the best.

“It’s recognising that there needs to be a balance,” notes Connacht coach Pete Wilkins of the potentially feral combustion.

“These games against Munster, particularly at Thomond Park, are so intense, so competitive, so combative.

“There’s 101 things going on, the crowd are on top of you, the referees are under a lot of pressure, and you don’t get access to the game if you don’t match that level of intensity and aggression and physicality and urgency.

“You have to have it. It’s your ticket to the contest.”

The late try in wet and windy Galway from Jack Aungier, denying Munster a bonus point, edged Connacht ahead of their visitors, but as the year turned neither side were within the top eight.

Munster emerged from that dark winter and have staged another spring uprising.

Five months later and, although Munster haven’t yet beaten an Irish team, a familiar South African safari haul – 10 points this time! – sees them knocking down the top-two door for a lucrative home-field run-in.

Connacht are struggling to remain in the top eight that secures both a playoff and Champions Cup qualification; it may be merely top seven should the league’ s bas king Sharks come up trumps in the Challenge Cup final.

Another indication of the shifting sands is revealed in the line-ups; JJ Hanrahan’s cruel ACL compounds a miserable glut of injuries; Hansen is still marked absent.

There’s a sense that they are targeting the Stormers in Galway next week to accumulate as many of the five, maybe six, points they feel might clinch their required bounty, while picking up opportunistic bonuses in Limerick or Dublin.

Munster will not accede to any generosity given their own pressing concerns.

“This game is a big, big game in itself,” says assistant coach Denis Leamy, whose side boast superior strength to the callow bunch who messed up their lines in the reverse fixture.

“There’s a huge amount on the line. Connacht are pushing hard for top eight, they are a really good side who are definitely a top-eight side. And obviously ourselves, we want to back up what we’ve done in the last couple of weeks.”

Given the conditions, perhaps the game will be a little more expressive than what occurred in Galway; certainly, that will be their intention.

We were about to check the respective trends before rugby columnist Paul Williams tracked them for us; remarkably, despite the disparity in league standings, Connacht are superior in all major markers except the scrum, the importance of which may not be pivotal.

On the basis of feeling, rather than figures, it seems folly to suggest anything other than another Munster league win, given they haven’t lost one since this reverse fixture and their only league loss at home all term was the (less than) festive defeat to Leinster.

Connacht haven’t won here in front of a crowd since 2015, while their two road successes, against Cardiff and Sharks, hardly scream resilience when asked to pitch up in an away dressing room.