MUNSTER’S ROAD TO RECOVERY
Some pride restored by Foley’s side but still lots to improve
MUNSTER haven’t completely gone away, you know. At 2.46pm yesterday afternoon, a 14,000-plus attendance stood as one in Limerick to warmly-acclaim an encouraging response from a team that had been drowning in its winter of discontent. A run the included six defeats in seven and a second successive January Champions Cup pool stage elimination was confirmed by last weekend’s dire surrender in Paris to the same opposition.
All miserable week they had talked the talk about how there would be a pride-restoring riposte. ‘Stick with us; something will click and turn the tide,’ insisted Mike Sherry, their misfiring lineout operator.
‘We’re not a bad team, we’re just going through a rough patch,’ added Conor Murray, one of just a handful of their players maintaining Ireland Six Nations aspirations following the province’s sharp downturn in fortunes.
While beleaguered coach Anthony Foley had chipped in with: ‘I’d love to have a small bit of luck, just a little bit; that would help us a small bit… I’d feel a hell of a lot more positive.’
Despite their scrum again reprising its penalty-conceding habits and their lineout also lacking complete reliability, Munster eventually got what they desired here. Their much improved levels of physicality and more unified defence paved the way for what can be considered a scoring avalanche by recent Munster standards.
Just seven tries and a miserably low tally of 66 points had been registered in 560 minutes this winter, a barren run where the only shaft of light was the unexpected league win at Ulster a fortnight ago.
But here they took their chances, their lineout maul laying the foundation for Sherry’s opening try before moments of individual brilliance either side of the interval from Keith Earls and Simon Zebo. Earls sold Pascal Pape a halfway dummy and then streaked clear of the cover to make the line with a flourish; Zebo crossed at the prompting of a sweet Ian Keatley chip.
That put Munster in a position to grab the badly-needed win, which they closed out by skipper CJ Stander’s bonus-earning score 11 minutes from the finish.
There was also a satisfying 10minute second-half period of one-inthe eye defensive defiance.
Too many tackles had been messed up in recent months, the rap sheet listing 130 missed tackles in 871 attempts, 23 of those errors materialising in last weekend’s Parisian surrender where their dreadfulness was encapsulated by the manner in which Stade claimed the second half by a 17-7 margin despite having to play the 40 minutes with 14 men.
Here, though, the tables were partially turned as Munster, who only missed 10 of 105 tackles following a week of recrimination in which new Ireland defence coach Andy Farrell was parachuted in as a temporary coaching consultant, held Stade scoreless after Ronan O’Mahony’s 50th minute sin-binning for clattering into the airborne Hugo Bonneval.
It was only after numerical parity had been restored that the Parisians finally made inroads into the 19-6 deficit that had been in existence since Keatley’s 43rd minute conversion of Zebo’s try. Stade took advantage of a Sherry overthrow to get Jonathan Ross in under the posts 17 minutes from time to put the result back in jeopardy.
However, with the visitors lacking the vibrancy of last week − epitomised by the energetic Sekou Macalou who was anonymous and replaced here − any anxiety that Munster would make a further mess of protecting their lead quickly evaporated. Stander dived over following Murray’s quickly-tapped penalty five minutes later, while there was even a final say to savour, a penalty earned at the final scrum illustrating that even that particular weakness could be remedied.
As confidence-boosting as all that was, though, the victory only served to highlight how terrible Munster had been performing this term and how a second limp January exit was inexcusable after 15 knockout stage qualifications in 16 seasons.
The brand under Foley stewardship simply isn’t the Munster the country had come to know and love and this pool fifth round dead rubber success was but a sticking plaster over a situation that will see much navel gazing in the weeks and months ahead to ensure the damage is fixed in time for next season’s Champions Cup. That’s provided, of course, that Munster can mend the error of their ways in the interim in the Pro12 to ensure they even secure qualification.
The dropping value of their stock was again evident in terrace apathy yesterday, some 12,000 spaces left unfilled at a time in the season where traditionally the ground was packed to bursting point. And, of course, the success that transpired was too little too late in the overall scheme of things. Sadly, that’s the bottom line Munster can’t lose sight of.
MUNSTER: S Zebo; K Earls, F Saili, R Scannell, R O’Mahony (L Amorosino, 61); I Keatley, C Murray (T O’Leary, 74); D Kilcoyne (L O’Connor, 77), M Sherry (N Scannell, 69), M Sagario (J Ryan, 50), D Foley, M Chisholm (D Ryan, 50), B Holland (R Copeland, 69), T O’Donnell, CJ Stander (J O’Donoghue, 74). Scorers – Tries: Sherry (19), Earls (40), Zebo (42), Stander (68); Cons: Keatley (40+1, 43, 69). Yellow card – O’ Mahony (50). STADE: H Bonneval; W Vuidarvuwalu, J Danty, P Williams, J Arias; M Steyn (J Plisson, 74), J Dupuy (J Thomas, 74); Z Taulafo (H van der Merwe, 50), L Panis, R Slimani (P Alo Emile, 55), P Gabrillagues, P Papé (H Pyle, 66), S Macalou (S Nicholas, 58), J Ross, S Parisse. Scorers – Try: Ross (63); Con: Steyn (64); Pens: Steyn (1, 37). REFEREE: JP Doyle (RFU).