Munster can get the job done on Sunday but need to make some tough decisions, writes Trevor Murphy
It has been a tough couple of weeks for the Munster Rugby setup. From the very poor performance against Cardiff Blues to the lack of a bonus point against Edinburgh, who are widely regarded as one of the weaker teams in the competition. There have been all kinds of mutterings on social media that you would not expect to hear surrounding the Munster team and management. Most of it can be disregarded as histrionics but there is a definite undercurrent there. I am not blameless here. I am not known for keeping my opinions to myself. My recent interaction with a certain rugby correspondent is evidence enough in that regard. This is not intended as a hatchet job on anyone but I am frustrated at what I perceive as completely ignoring a forward orientated game plan to the detriment of results.
So where to start... Make no mistake; Munster had the required weapons to get a try bonus point against Edinburgh. It wouldn’t have been pretty but it would have worked. We would all like to see free flowing attacking rugby but it seems that is little outside of our reach at the moment. When you watch New Zealand play you get a sense that they are playing the game at 100mph. The key to this is quick ball. “No shit Murph” I hear you say... But it’s so obvious it’s sort of ridiculous to say. The key to having space to pass the ball wide is punching holes in defence, attacking the ruck and moving the ball accurately and quickly. Only after multiple phases of front foot ball do professional defences struggle to realign themselves. Then you get mismatches and defensive lines that are in a dog leg formation. So we have a breakdown somewhere. We have forwards capable of getting us front foot ball.
Next step is the scrum half. It is critical that the scrum half can pass the ball quickly and accurately to the men outside him. We are struggling in this phase at the moment. There is no doubting Murray’s ability but there does seem to be a slight glitch in his movement when passing. The result of this glitch, as I call it, is to allow defenders to limit the space our out half to operate in. Rugby is a tough physical game and opponents don’t usually need any encouragement to get “stuck in” If you dangle your out half like a carrot in front of their back row you’re in for a tough day at the office! God help us if Murray gets injured at the moment. We need to strengthen our cover at 9 as far as I’m concerned.
This next paragraph is a tough one...
Ronan O’Gara has been a stand out number 10 for more years than I can remember in Northern Hemisphere rugby. Unfortunately time waits for no man and as he approaches the latter stages of his career he has lost a yard of pace it seems. Never the quickest of out halves ROG could usually make space by his sleight of hand and attacking outside shoulders of slower forwards. It seems to me that opponents don’t regard him as any kind of running threat and are pressing a little harder on the back of this. This unfortunately compounds the situation when distributing the ball from rucks and mauls. I still rate ROG as a top flight out half but it’s a “horses for courses” approach we need now. There is no out half in the business I would rather have to marshal our forwards around the field than ROG but when we have to chase a try count I believe there is a better option. Ian Keatley or JJ Hanrahan is preferable when we are chasing tries. Possibly a scenario where JJ is outside Keatley at 12 would reap dividends? They both have the ability to wrong foot defenders and get our back line firing.
The next link in the chain is our first centre. We currently have a quality “crash ball” merchant in James Downey. He has been doing it for years for Northampton but we seem reluctant to use him in this way. Begs the question! Why? Are we averse to this tactic? If it works why not use it? Do we not want the defence on the back foot? Break the gain line, recycle the ball quickly and make use of the pace in our outside backs. Earls is a quality line breaker. Zebo & Howlett are quality finishers if given a sniff and Jones is no slouch. I tweeted during the Edinburgh game “Munster recipe for success: Downey takes the ball up, runs over defender! Recycle, Downey takes the ball up, runs over defender! IT WORKS!” and I believe it to be a fair and accurate assessment of what is/was required by Munster.
A consistent weakness in our game at the moment is that our “runners” are standing still receiving the ball after a couple of phases. You don’t have to be a physics professor to understand what will happen to a player when he receives the ball standing still. The entire team has to realign behind the new gain line five yards back IF we can recycle the ball. This makes an already tough task nigh on impossible. Even when we do move the ball, we are running lines that are cutting down space for the players attacking in the wide channels. Lack of space isn’t the only negative to our running lines at the moment! We saw last weekend when we ran a penalty close to the Edinburgh try line. As the ball was going wide the defenders were up fast. As a player runs across the pitch it leaves him open to a bit hit from a defender where he is least equipped to handle it, in the side. On this occasion we spilled the ball under pressure from the defence. As my frequent tweets showed, I was in favour of taking a scum at that juncture. Granted, scrums are a bit of a lottery at the moment, but on the day we were in the ascendancy and I feel it was worth the risk. What really made the decision though was the ref saying “time for one set only”. What that means in reality is the defence could collapse the scrum and the ref would bottle the decision.
I cannot understand the IRB’s reluctance to set about sorting the scrum issues. A huge step forward would be to have the scrum square and straight. This will eliminate early shoves and massively reduce scrums hitting the deck and requiring reset after reset after reset. Yes the IRB are looking at the scrum situation but FFS apply the law as it stands and see where that leads us instead of spending time and money redesigning the whole process! Brian Moore has a wealth of experience in scrums and is not shy in putting forward his considered views on the subject. FYI he doesn’t suffer fools on his twitter feed @brianmoore666 here is a link to a wiki Brian was asked to pen for Rugbyrefs.com :
On the plus side, we have the raw ability in the ranks to do a number on Racing this weekend. If the crowd turn up like they did in the Saracens fixture there should be no doubting the result. If we leave the outcome of the pool stages in other teams’ hands there are a myriad of permutations that are possible. We can still qualify for the quarter finals but we may need some help along the way. A note of caution here... Be careful what you wish for from the weekends game. If some of the other teams in contention tank it we could well be faced with a trip to Toulon :-(
The best possible outcome in my opinion would be we are the 8th team to qualify and face Harlequins in the Quarter Final.
Here’s a link to a set of possible permutations for the QF spots
We really need Thomond Park to be rocking this weekend!
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!
