These lads have stones.
I’ve conducted a vibe exam and determined that 1-23 in this game Have That Dawg In ‘Em and I’ll be taking no further questions on it at this time, thank you. I’ve watched the game back a few times now, as I have the game against the same opponents in the Champions Cup from a few weeks ago, and the parallels are stark. In the build-up to this game, I spoke about negating the Sharks’ counter-ruck to take out their edge blitz, I talked about the scrum and I spoke about keeping their maul out of the game.
Inside the first 10 minutes, we’d suffered at the hands of their counter-ruck, their outside blitz, and their scrum and conceded a close-range try off the back of a strong Sharks maul. When the score eventually stretched out to 19-3 before half-time, it felt like that third quarter a few weeks back where the game seemed to be slipping away from us while we looked on, helpless and drowning in pools of our own sweat.
Offensively, I thought we were better than the previous game – our breakdown work in the first half was improved, not where it needed to be, but better. The Sharks were still causing us issues in the collision in the few seconds post-collision with strong, effective counter-rucking or sticky roll-aways, with the ever-present jackal threat of the colossal Du Toit and the nuggety and effective Nche.
With our breakdown adding some lag to our multiphase game, we tried to structure our way beyond and outside that aggressive edge in blitz from the Sharks wingers and midfield.
We hit centre-field ruck position, ran a three-man pod with a screen off #10 with stacked runners and a finisher outside.
The pass from Crowley here was fine – Fekitoa just wasn’t expecting a pass, despite running in a screen. If the pass sticks, you can see the option of Fekitoa using Daly with O’Mahony on the pinch with Nash waiting to scorch Ben Tapuai on the edge.
We then tried to switch up our receivers (all of our outside backline got a rotation at first receiver here) with Crowley going deeper but a relatively slow ruck recycle, a pass to the side Sharks had stacked with defenders and then a few poor passes from Barron to Daly and then Daly to Crowley brought their edge pressure into the game again.
We weren’t able to consistently break them open with our multiphase game and, all too often, our sequences ended with a fumble or a play that would end in a scrum.
If last week was a good example of how stable Munster’s scrummaging can be, this week was an example of how styles make fights. If you’re wondering what the difference was between Munster’s scrum last week and this week, it was Ox Nche. He is such a bad matchup for most tall tightheads and he gave Stephen Archer a torrid time all throughout his time on the field.
Nche burrowed in and under Archer consistently and popped him while Mbonambi consistently disrupted Barron, all while Du Toit powered through the separation that “lift” presented. You can see above how often Du Toit was almost driving into unopposed real estate because of the disruption Nche was causing.
Every pass was a potential penalty and it showed in some of our phase play. The scrum was a constant access point for the Sharks who didn’t really threaten us all that much outside that chain of success. Scrum, penalty, lineout, maul – that’s all they needed.
With the power of their drive-through on Du Toit at the maul, in particular, they looked like scoring every time they had access around our 5m line.
Our messaging for the second half had to be this; improve the breakdown, get more separation on our phase play to stretch them as I discussed here and keep their scrum/penalty/maul sequence out of the game.
Almost immediately in the second half, we gave them a scrum penalty after another Nche burrowing job on Archer who, outside the scrum, was really going well around the field and on our lineout.
Instead of going for a kill shot, the Sharks opted to kick for three points which they duly got to put the score out to 22-3 and give them space to chase a bonus point.
Our job from a scoring perspective was simple; get back within seven points. All we needed was a losing bonus point to save our season so, from that perspective, the Sharks going for three saved our back. Boeta Chamberlain blowing a kick down the line after another Nche-forced scrum penalty was another let off but we were already showing that we could hurt the Sharks in the second half.
When they finally messed up a scrum to give us a free kick deep in their half after the Sharks overplayed a restart exit – they were chasing a bonus point with what they assumed was an unassailable lead – we stitched together some really sharp phases to get into a position where a kinder bounce here means a try for Shane Daly.
We would be awarded a penalty try a few minutes later but this comes from what we spoke about in the Red Eye before the Champions Cup game – extend the lines and we can isolate their front five. You can see the offload from Coombes taking out Du Toit and the space left outside as their big pack try to fold around.
A few minutes later, Ben Healy found Calvin Nash in enough space to build a nice shack for himself after our maul compressed the Sharks’ defence into the left half of the field. They were visibly tiring after a day of pretty heavy defence to that point so they were looking for cheat lines – looking for the easy play.
It’s one thing to take this kick, it’s another thing to do something with it but Calvin Nash is playing with the confidence of a winger who knows he’s got the gas to torch anyone in space and a winger with Nash’s speed is a dangerous animal. This finish, albeit with the botch from Chamberlain, is pure endeavour and top end speed.
The little shift of the feet to take him outside Werner Kok – all that shows a winger who’s starting to pull the top end of the game together intellectually, with the rugby engine to match.
It was a very special finish and, just like that, the Big Red Zombie that is never really dead at all and only a heartbeat away from a comeback was shambling at the door of the Sharks home, clawing to be let in. LET US IN.
And the Sharks did. By this stage, they were looking like the team that was struggling in the conditions. They were struggling to cover wide rucks and, all of a sudden, we were the ones counter-rucking them.
We were locking out the scrum with Nche off the field. Archer was well able to handle Mchunu – as he is with most larger looseheads – and that took the penalty advance from the scrum out of the game. Without that, Sharks looked incredibly limited.
We also engaged in some counter-transition style kicking length, especially with Healy on the field that really drew the sting out the Sharks with every transit of the ball up and down the field. When we mixed that with our multi-phase game becoming more powerful as the game wore on because their counter-ruck degraded while our efficiency increased.
The three-man pods with the screen and layered options off the handler that struggled to find purchase in the first half were now finding leggy edge blitz defenders and forwards that weren’t able to cover across.
We earned that freedom with our commitment to playing multi-phase possession. Our Pass Per Carry ration dipped below 1.3 here but I expected that. We had to tighten up and go to the wall with these guys to get what we needed from this game, and we did.
In a way, it was fitting that the try that levelled the scores would come from a series of close-range maul drives that showcased our improved schemes and execution under pressure. That isn’t to say we didn’t need Fineen Wycherley pulling off a season-defining lineout steal in the last five minutes that allowed us to push for the winner.
As a piece of lineout defence from both the Wycherley brothers and Gavin Coombes as the hinge lifter, it doesn’t get much better than this.
We finished this game just about being held up over the line but we had our business done. Two points were enough to guarantee a fifth-place finish, guarantee a playoff run in the Northern Hemisphere and, almost as importantly, Champions Cup rugby for next season. Let’s not forget, this Munster side were 14th after seven games and have only lost twice in the league since the end of October 2022.
Even then, to manage to come to South Africa in April and come back with seven match points tells us that there is real steel in this group that has been exposed by the lashings taken against Glasgow and then the Sharks.
You do not come back from those games to go unbeaten in South Africa, with the first win over the URC champions and then scoring 19 points in 30 minutes to force a comeback when you need it most without having character. And a Munster side with real character and true grit is a dangerous combination.
Our road to redemption takes us to Scotstoun, the team who humiliated us at home to start this sequence of games off. Seems… fitting that we go on the road to them to start our playoff run. This Munster team have found their identity this season on the road – away to Leinster, away to Ulster, away to Northampton, away to Toulouse, away to Edinburgh, away to Stormers and now away to Sharks.
If we’re going to win something this year – as unlikely as it seemed in October and a difficult as it would be – I think doing it the Hard Way on the Hard Road suits this team. It always has, and it seems this young group have embraced those traditional values.
| Names | Rating |
|---|---|
| Jeremy Loughman | ★★★ |
| Diarmuid Barron | ★★★★★ |
| Stephen Archer | ★★★★ |
| Jean Kleyn | ★★★★★ |
| Fineen Wycherley | ★★★★★ |
| Peter O'Mahony | ★★★★★ |
| Alex Kendellen | ★★★★ |
| Gavin Coombes | ★★★★★ |
| Conor Murray | ★★★★ |
| Jack Crowley | ★★★ |
| Shane Daly | ★★★ |
| Malakai Fekitoa | ★★★ |
| Antoine Frisch | ★★★★ |
| Calvin Nash | ★★★★★ |
| Mike Haley | ★★★★ |
| Scott Buckley | N/A |
| Josh Wycherley | ★★★ |
| Keynan Knox | DNP |
| Edwin Edogbo | ★★★★ |
| Jack O'Donoghue | ★★★★ |
| Craig Casey | ★★★ |
| Ben Healy | ★★★★ |
| Keith Earls | N/A |
