[su_dropcap style=”flat” size=”4″]W[/su_dropcap]hen it comes to beating Leinster, Munster do not, and have never had, a “mental block”. There is no such thing as a “hoodoo”. This game proved that those concepts are simply the narratives people tell each other after a series of wins or losses to make themselves feel better, or worse. What these 80-minutes on Saturday evening showed us is that Munster’s issue with Leinster over the last year in microcosm and the last three seasons when we look at the bigger picture isn’t some curse, it’s been power differential.
When we don’t have power parity, we try to play around that differential by loading up on our tactical kicking game, which comes with inherently uncontrollable variables that, even when they play out in our favour, still rely on winning consistent collisions somewhere. Too often that hasn’t been the case.
In this week’s Red Eye, I wrote the following;
I’ve covered Leinster a lot over the last year. I’ve done three Red Eyes over the last year. So believe me when I tell you that they are not an unbeatable juggernaut. They could well win another star this season but it won’t be because they are impossible to beat. If you pressure them on the gainline consistently they are as vulnerable as any other team.
Could Munster pressure Leinster on the gainline in a way that hurt them? Leinster’s selection of Andrew Porter, Ryan Baird, Josh Murphy and, after some injury rejigging pre-game, James Ryan to start would be key physical obstacles for Munster to overcome in this regard, on both sides of the ball.
The game started with good indicators in this regard. Look at this sequence of close-range maul defence after a soft enough penalty for a supposed no-arm tackle by Mike Haley.
Leinster’s build position at the front opened up an angle for Archer to surge up the flank when Leinster felt Munster’s touchline shove and reacted to shift in-field. In a way, Leinster actually brought Archer onto Sheehan when they looked to push in on the left shoulder. That’s a smart bit of maul defence by Archer – and good in-field resistance to deny Leinster momentum which allows Archer time to make the play – but I liked what came after even more.
Handbags sure, right? Yes but this, to me, lets the opposition know where you are mentally. It shows them that you’re not going to take any brown stuff for the next 77 minutes. That kind of spite has been missing from most of our games against Leinster over the last year or more, to our detriment.
It set a tone.
You could see it in the build up to our first try. We weren’t winning every single collision we wanted to but we were getting good stops when it counted and countering really well when we lost collisions. That lead directly to the first try.
We’ve had early leads against Leinster before though and we’ve surrendered them by losing defensive collisions incrementally. Essentially, when Leinster tightened it up, we would struggle to live with them phase for phase. We’d hang on for most of the phases but when Leinster found a good rotation through their forwards, they would gobble up space incrementally until the pressure told. This time, we weren’t just living with them phase for phase – we were imposing ourselves with hyper-aggressive pressing, lots of line speed, big hits on key carriers and a bit of meanness on the scramble and the counter-ruck for much of the first half.
We don’t usually get this kind of collision dominance consistently against Leinster. They were without guys like Ruddock, Conan, Kelleher and Healy, sure, but Porter, Sheehan, Penny, Baird, Ryan, Moloney and Murphy are far from soft in the carry or in defence, even if it did feel like Leinster missed what they hoped Caelan Doris would bring after his long concussion layoff.
And while there’s no doubting that Hawkshaw (on for the unfortunately injured Harry Byrne and pre-game pullout Ciarán Frawley) and Hugh O’Sullivan didn’t link Leinster’s inside carrying rotation with their outside runners to the level Leinster normally enjoy, but such was the pressure Munster were getting on the Leinster ball-carrying rotation and ruck recycle, it barely seemed to matter all that much.
Much like what happened when Leinster played Connacht a few months ago, Leinster didn’t really kick with the regularity or accuracy that has brought them through the rare occasions where they faced physical parity or a negative differential.
It was Munster, in fact, who were kicking smarter and longer, especially on transition.
That first example is a good illustration of effective we were off the set-piece, in general, when we managed to launch properly, in this instance hitting Leinster on the reverse to catch Porter on the way back from the lineout. It’s all the more impressive that we managed to win as comfortably as we did with a relatively poor return from the lineout that we only managed to cancel out by wrecking Leinster’s lineout to a similar level.
Our kicking tendencies on transition were a nice touch too – we constantly found width and looked to pressure the Leinster backfield through the book and then pressure their subsequent lineout/exits.
Here’s another good example of turning pro-active, aggressive pressure defence into positive territory.
The ending wasn’t great but it was a good illustration of how Munster won this game; nullifying Leinster’s ball carrying, pressurising every collision point with minimal numbers and then kicking smartly on the front foot, as opposed to scraping by in the collision and then resetting with the box kick. We had a physical advantage so, low and behold, we could play more proactively and hurt Leinster on the ball.
We were particularly effective off the scrum, where we could more easily isolate Hawkshaw, O’Loughlin and Ringrose.
The try that effectively decided the game had its roots in a solid scrum launch that showed consistent dominant collision wins stitched together.
Even a relatively static carry from Loughman couldn’t slow the momentum and everything from O’Mahony’s carry, to Coombes’ top-class offload, to Farrell’s hammer on Larmour, to Murray’s sniped finish was the kind of thing that happens when you win collisions and take your opportunities.
Power gives you a licence to play. We had it, and we stopped Leinster from getting their power into the game. In some ways, the game played out as a reverse of the recent fixtures between these two clubs. Munster exerted their power over Leinster and forced them into the toothless carries, lost breakdowns and poor decisions that have been the hallmark of our recent defeats to them in Dublin and Limerick.
What to make of it all? It’s a positive. It’s not a trophy, like, but it’s a good performance and a great result. The last team to keep Leinster tryless at the RDS since their defeat to Wasps back in November 2015 so that on its own is notable even if Leinster chose to rotate out some of their front line players. If Leinster had McGrath and even Harry Byrne/Frawley fully fit, they’d have been a little closer but the collision dominance Munster had would have forced them into a lot of kicking, just like we have to do when they have collision dominance.
Look, there’ll be no cartwheels in the street from me but it proves that Munster can beat Leinster when we are dominant in the collision on both sides of the ball and force their kicking game into variable territory. When we have that kind of power differential, we can even make it look comfortable. If anything, the scoreboard probably flattered Leinster a small bit at the end but Munster will take the big win, the dominant performance and bank it for the next time.
We showed here that when Leinster lose most of their offensive and defensive collisions, they look the same as everyone else does in the same circumstances. Beatable.
The trick is scaling this up when they rotate Furlong (?), Healy, Kelleher, Ala’alatoa, Ruddock and Conan back in while we rotate Snyman and Jenkins in.
Food for thought, at the very least.
Notable Players
This was a really solid performance from the pack, in particular.
I’ve rated all of them quite highly. Niall Scannell didn’t have a perfect game off the sideline but he worked bloody hard in defence and really nailed his role perfectly.
Dave Kilcoyne didn’t really get on-ball as often as I expected in this one but then, we didn’t really have long extended periods of possession. What he did do was launch himself into tackles and cleanouts with the kind of venom that wins collisions on both sides of the ball.
Stephen Archer had a mixed game in a lot of ways. He conceded one poor penalty in the first half – not that one – but put himself about well. His yellow card for stamping on James Ryan put us a man down, cost us a good position and will probably see him cited but… I’d live with it.
Over the last five or six games against Leinster, I’ve watched my fair share of unpenalised high, late hits, dodgy ruck entries, off the ball shots and I haven’t been clipping them and sharing them because I don’t want to kick up a social media shitstorm around Irish players playing hard for their province.
In this instance, I’m happy enough that a Munster guy was the one putting a physical marker down even if he did go a little too far and got rightly punished for it. Good, physical, gnarly performance.
Damien De Allende and Chris Farrell had hugely effective games carrying the ball and impacting hard in defence. The way they consistently linked up with each other offensively was a huge part of our attacking launches – when they were looking good, we were looking good.
This was as good as I’ve seen Chris Farrell on the defensive side of the ball in a good long while. An impactful, high-quality performance on both sides of the ball.
Conor Murray and Joey Carbery had a very smooth game as a partnership without ever really reaching what I feel could be their peak as a partnership. I did feel that Murray overplayed one or two moments and made a few errors but he showed his support running and close-range finishing are as good as ever. I thought Carbery’s individual performance was very understated but all the better for it. He didn’t overplay his hand at any stage, varied his game really well and consistently posed the right questions to Leinster in possession. Really encouraging.
Tadhg Beirne had one of those games that fell below the kind of game-altering performances he’s capable of but was still of the kind of quality that shone through against good back five opposition. If he was any more of a lion, he’d be called Mufasa.
He was joined by two high-quality performances by CJ Stander and Peter O’Mahony, who excelled in classic examples of what has made both players who they are in this game. Stander sat down multiple Leinster defenders and imposed himself physically on both sides of the ball.
O’Mahony had the kind of aggressive performance that has highlighted all of his top-end displays in green and red. He wrecked the Leinster lineout as the game progressed and hit rucks with the kind of poison that I think we’ve missed in a red shirt over the last while. Quality.
Coombes and Wycherley were backed to be impact players for Munster off the bench and they did just that. Wycherley brought real pop and aggression around the collision points while offering the kind of athletic lineout work that has been a constant throughout his young career.
Gavin Coombes impact was almost immediate in that his carry and offload set the table for Murray’s try. That moment alone was of the highest quality and shows the capability that Coombes has to be a genuine game-breaker.
Look, I’m a big fan of Jean Kleyn. I love what he brings to the game outside of things like his carrying, mauling and ruck work. Little moments like this, where he puts a few frighteners on Scott Penny during a bit of handbags, is exactly what I want from my lock forward.
Penny is a good young player but Kleyn seemed to take him out of the game here. Not by battering him, but by making him think about the scrap, not the match. Small little bits, but they add up and Penny will learn from this moment. Kleyn has been one of the most consistently excellent players for Munster this season and this game had all the hits – massive stops in defence, a few big, impactful carries and top solid mauling and scrummaging during his time on the field.
My top player, however, was Jack O’Donoghue. I really thought this was as good as I’ve seen O’Donoghue with regards to hitting the top notes of the Combo Flanker role in some time. His defensive radius – the ground he covered – was colossal. His breakdown work was consistently vicious and brutally effective. He was penalised a little harshly for this ruck entry late in the first half but this is the kind of counter-ruck mentality we need in these kinds of situations.
Go low, go hard, make them pay. His energy and work rate in defence was of the highest quality and was the kind of performance that would make any coach – Munster or Ireland – stand up and take notice. O’Donoghue is a player who is really nailing his role right now and when a player finds that identity, it’s a powerful thing. Top class. ★★★★★
The Wally Ratings: Leinster (A)
The Wally Ratings explainer page is here.
Players are rated based on their time on the pitch, if they were playing notably out of position, and on the overall curve of the team performance. DNP means the player did not feature and N/A means they weren’t on the pitch long enough to warrant a fair rating.
| Names | Rating |
|---|---|
| Dave Kilcoyne | ★★★★ |
| Niall Scannell | ★★★ |
| Stephen Archer | ★★★ |
| Jean Kleyn | ★★★★ |
| Tadhg Beirne | ★★★★ |
| Peter O'Mahony | ★★★★ |
| Jack O'Donoghue | ★★★★★ |
| CJ Stander | ★★★★ |
| Conor Murray | ★★★★ |
| Joey Carbery | ★★★★ |
| Shane Daly | ★★★ |
| Damian De Allende | ★★★★ |
| Chris Farrell | ★★★★ |
| Keith Earls | ★★★ |
| Mike Haley | ★★★ |
| Diarmuid Barron | ★★★ |
| Jeremy Loughman | ★★★ |
| Keynan Knox | ★★★ |
| Fineen Wycherley | ★★★★ |
| Gavin Coombes | ★★★★ |
| Craig Casey | ★★★★ |
| Ben Healy | ★★★ |
| Calvin Nash | ★★★ |
