Trevor Murphy runs the rule over Munster’s third win out of four to start the season
Round four complete and other one in the W column. Considering we have lost one game (narrowly) so far this season I was disappointed, no that’s too weak, I was very disappointed at the level of support for our Munster hero’s. As a friend who shall remain nameless texted me... “In the pub, beer won”. WTF, I thought. Is this what it has come to? And the killer blow... LIGHT BEER!!! We are all outraged are we not? Feel free to share your outrage on Facebook and Twitter.
But I digress. Most notable in the run up to kick off was the minute’s silence for Nevin Spence and his family which was impeccably observed. We will never forget!
I felt the Dragons players to watch out for on the night were the likes of Faletau, Lydiate and Prydie. Lydiate is usually a proper nuisance around the park, especially around the ruck. Faletau is a dangerous runner and can really hurt you when he breaks through the line. Prydie has some good pace when given any space. On the night I was impressed with how quite we kept Lydiate. He did have some strapping on his ankle but if it was bothering him he surely wouldn’t have played the full eighty minutes. Faletau didn’t make an entrance to the field of battle on the night and Prydie wasn’t afforded much space.
Our first score came in the second minute. Earls made a big skip pass to Zebo who went storming into the Dragons 22. Zebo then passed to Howlett who was supporting on his left shoulder. Zebo was in support for the return pass to give Keatley an easy try on the left wing. A breathless start for the crowd who hadn’t even settled at that stage. O’Gara was at his best for the conversion from the touchline.
The rest of the first ten minutes can be summed up by strong Munster defence forcing the Dragons to be quite lateral in attack. That’s not really surprising when you see Doug Howlett munch his opposite number in the tackle and drive him back. The only other event of note is a brief shamozzle after a scrum in the seventh minute. Mike Sherry was clearly not impressed with the conduct of the Dragons hooker Steve Jones. There’s a name you will read a couple of times in this piece. A friend suggested that Steve may be suffering a bit of small man syndrome as this was the first of five or six incidents of where he was seen to be the root cause.
Earls was shown the outside shoulder after a scrum and he took full advantage offloading to Keatley midway between the Dragons 22 and ten yard line. Zebo was showing a good appetite for work to take the ball on when Keatley was stymied. When the ball was recycled through a few phases Earls was on hand to sprint into open space. He drew the defender before offloading to Zebo in full flight. Simon dummied on defender and took the ball to within five meters where Niall Ronan was on hand to finish the move dotting down for our second try. It was great to see Niall return after a long slog through injury starting last January. The back row is going to be a VERY competitive area this year. Consider the Peter O’Mahony, Donnacha Ryan and the Blue Bull CJ Stander are yet to make an appearance. O’Gara duly added the extra points.
Things were really looking up at this point at which point we gave the Dragons their first chance to put points on the board. Prydie made no mistake with the sitter in front of the posts. This seemed to give the Dragons some energy. We conceded another penalty and this time we were to lose O’Callaghan. Steve Jones was making a nuisance of himself hold back Donnacha at a ruck and in trying to get clear Donnacha was adjudged to have made contact with Jones face. Jones reaction after the card was comical. He was a picture of innocence!
Donnacha certainly didn’t believe that he had done much wrong looking at his demeanour on the naughty chair. Prydie missed his kick and play resumed with a Dragons knock on. The scrum resulted in a free kick with the Dragons wheeling the scrum before the ball had even been fed. The dragons seemed devoid of ideas at times resorting to kicking away possession when you feel they should have been looking to assert their numerical advantage. Cheap penalties cost them at crucial times. Simon Zebo showed good strength to hand off a defender from a standstill in the next phase to keep his team mates on the front foot. We kicked to touch from inside the 22. Not the usual choice by Munster but an intelligent decision considering we were down to fourteen.
From the lineout we formed a maul. I have to say, in all the Rugby I have watched so far this season I have seen one maul where the defending team didn’t infringe. The IRB need to pull their collective fingers out as this phase of play is becoming a liability with officials turning a blind eye to the number of infringements. (Reminder: Tweet the IRB head honcho who actually reads and responds to tweets). Eventually we are called for holding on in the ruck. I’ll say nothing about the defender wrapping his legs around to stop the ball from being placed back on the Munster side. There’s another reminder in that one I think. Seems NZ have it down to a fine art. Half a second is usually enough to get your second man in attacking the ball.
Dragons kicked to the ten yard line to relieve the pressure. Munster displayed good game management in this phase of the game. Playing the game in the Dragons half, reducing the threat the Dragons could pose with their extra man. When the Dragons did get possession in our territory they invariable butchered the chance. We conceded a scrum penalty in our 22. Steve Jones is once again chirpy as the players come up. Donncha re-joined the fray at this time andI have to say, his demeanour was such that a brick wall wouldn’t have stopped him. Jerry Flannery obviously agreed with this sentiment as he described him running back on, “Donncha O’Callaghan running back onto the field like a 90’s wrestler the Ultimate Warrior, great to see his enthusiasm coming back onto the field” Enthusiasm... Yes with a touch of fire and brimstone! There was also a reference to “Animaniacs” also but my Irish isn’t the best. Anyone want to venture which character Donncha would have been most like at that moment???
The next phase resulted in a scrum to Munster when they managed to hold the Dragons player up in the tackle. The communication and work rate for their team mates was impressive. Our execution unfortunately invited more pressure at this stage of the first half and saw us defending on our own 22. Steve Jones again was up to no good holding a Munster man down in back play but thankfully he didn’t get the left hook he deserved. Our defence stood strong with the Dragons conceding a penalty at the ruck five yards behind where they started the phase.
At times we were perhaps guilty of trying to hard but better that than not trying at all. Our scrum seemed to have the measure of the Dragons pack but scrum time is such a lottery that you never know which way the merry whistle blower is going to direct his ire. I admire Mike Sherry’s self control at not getting stuck into Jones again when he grade him around the head and neck while getting to his feet. At the next scrum Botha was the subject of some messing and gave the hobbit a good shove as the scrum broke up. He wasn’t backing down and advanced on Jones to see if the “wanted a chat”. Penalty was awarded for the push by Botha.
The resulting lineout in our 22 was overthrown and Munster once again displayed their ambition to run the ball even from deep but kicked the ball away. We need to be a bit more judicious about kicking possession away in situations like this. If it’s not 60-40 in your favour I think you need to take the contact and recycle. Better teams, or in fact the Dragons on a better day, will punish a mistake like that. Thankfully the Dragons outside runners consistently over ran the play and they were called up for forward passes more than once.
As the half was closing out the errors started to creep in. Scrum penalty conceded in Dragons half. Marcus put in a good tackle with Paddy Butler to force the Dragons 8 Tom Brown into touch from the resulting lineout around our 22.Another maul stifled by an infringement led to a Munster clearing kick going straight into the hands of the Dragons full back. His first option was a Garryowen fielded and cleared by Munster. Our defence was never really troubled out wide and more rock solid defence in the 10 12 channel forced another turnover for Munster. Munster conceded another scrum penalty to close out the half and Prydie tacked on the points. Half time score was 14-6
I’ll post part 2 in a day or two. There’s a bit to digest there.
I’m Trevor, 39. A passionate Munster and Irish Rugby Fan. I have strong opinions on this beautiful game of ours. Stand up and fight!
