This was, uh, not good.

Very not good.

But if you saw this game, you know that already. If you didn’t see the game and you’re a Munster fan – don’t bother. There’s not much there for you, Jack Crowley’s performance aside.

There will be a lot of focus on this loss because it can easily be slotted into whatever pet narrative that you have about the coaching at Munster Rugby. If one of the narratives you have in the aftermath of this game is that Munster just want to play one out rugby, you’re going to need a new narrative. Munster just flat out didn’t play that way. Our Pass Per Carry ratio, which can give us a rough approximation of how direct or indirectly we played, was 1.64. This is one of the highest PPC ratings I have on record for Munster in the last number of years. In the Rainbow Cup win over Leinster, our PPC rating was 1.38.

So we tried to play, we tried to get width on the ball, we tried to be expansive but we were hurt by another number, a far more important number in the context of this game than our PPC rating. That number is 14.

Fourteen penalties, fourteen turnovers.

The more you try to play, the more mistakes you risk and that is certainly the case here but 14 turnovers in a game where we were also conceding multiple scrum penalties on both sides of the ball is a recipe for the substandard performance we all saw. Ospreys were regularly able to move the ball upfield cheaply and easily, we weren’t able to affect their lineout as hard as we probably schemed for to disrupt that flow of territory and we regularly conceded penalties on our defensive sets in the aftermath. It turns out that giving away a cheap three points six times is enough to lose a game when you can’t take your chances up the other end.

The scrum battle played a massive role in this loss. Thanks to some clever work by the Ospreys.

On the watch back, it seemed like Ospreys managed to disguise Smith’s boring in on Scannell and Ryan with some nifty footwork in the locks and backrow. When Smith angled in, Ospreys slid to the same side and it made John Ryan look like he was the one scrummaging in.

Now, I’m sure he was boring in on a few of those scrums but it seemed like something that could have been nipped in the bud a little bit earlier. We’ll be frustrated that we didn’t react quicker.

♛ ♛ ♛

There are two versions of this game.

There is the one where Munster take their three close-range chances in the first half and go on to win this game comfortably, and then there’s what actually happened.

Those three moments, dotted as they were throughout the first half, were key swing points in this game. If even one of these gets converted, I think Munster probably go on to win this game.

But they didn’t get converted and each missed opportunity drained momentum away, especially in combination with getting on the wrong side of the referee. Even then, at 12-10 around the 56-minute mark – directly after Munster’s close-range maul try – I felt it was just a matter of time before we took the lead, even when the Ospreys picked up another three points to stretch out to 15-10.

This is where the turnovers really started to bite. Have a look at this video – it’s a long one – but you’ll see what we were trying to do and where we fell down. A few knock-ons in contact, some crafty Ospreys defence, a few passes not given, a few low quality passes – they all add up.

So the idea that Munster came to Swansea and just wanted to play one out rugby just isn’t true. You can see why the PPC rating was so high in the above montage. We plainly tried to move the ball and play with width and depth but killer individual errors let us down at key moments.

And then we just ran out of time.

When the Ospreys edged ahead by 8 points – another penalty – with 10 minutes to go, it changed the context of the game for us. We went looking for three points from long range to at least get us into losing bonus point territory with a chance of attacking off the restart but Healy was off target from just inside the Munster half and narrowly missed a drop goal from 56 metres.

The final act of the game was another long-range penalty from Healy that just drifted across the face of the posts. No bonus point. Just a disappointing loss with four weeks to stew on it. This loss isn’t a fatal blow by any means and, ultimately, it means whatever you want it to mean depending on what you feel.

I think any proclamations on what it means for Munster’s season as a whole are premature, obviously, but there will be key areas to address as we head to South Africa after the November break.

Personally, this game feels like a “blip” more than anything else. A bad performance, for sure, with some serious unit problems – the scrum – and uncharacteristic errors from good players. The biggest issue, for me, is the degradation of our lineout in the last two weeks, which has seriously hindered our scoring efficiency.

Going to South Africa with that still being an issue feels like a bad time waiting to happen.

Notable Players

No real standout players here bar the excellent Jack Crowley.

Craig Casey will be disappointed with his error exiting on the full off the restart right after our try but, other than that, I thought his passing range and tempo was absolutely superb. Some of the passes he got away off the lineout were of the highest quality and, with some better end product from others, would have been far more prominent. With Champions Cup games on the horizon, I’d be starting Craig Casey the way things stand right now.

Jack Crowley had a superb first senior start. He’s just a confident guy who backs his skillset over and over again, and with some serious chops and intent in defence too.

He’s quick, he’s agile, and he’s not afraid to take people on with the ball in hand.

This guy looks like he’s got the physique and athletic profile to be a serious option for Munster, sooner rather than later. Massively encouraging.

The Wally Ratings: Ospreys (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
Jeremy Loughman	★★★
Niall Scannell	★★★
John Ryan	★★
Jean Kleyn	★★★
Fineen Wycherley	★★★
Tadhg Beirne	★★
Peter O'Mahony	★★
Jack O'Donoghue	★★
Craig Casey	★★★
Jack Crowley	★★★★
Shane Daly	★★★
Dan Goggin	★★★
Liam Coombes	★★★
Andrew Conway	★★★
Matt Gallagher	★★
Kevin O'Byrne	★★★
Josh Wycherley	★★★
Keynan Knox	★★★
Gavin Coombes	★★★
John Hodnett	★★★
Conor Murray	★★
Ben Healy	★★★
Damian De Allende	★★