Over the last few years – it’s nearly a decade, actually – we’ve become very good at detecting the different flavours of loss you can have to Leinster in the Aviva Stadium. Last season I spoke about a 14-point loss in terms of showing that Superman could be made to bleed. It was a Useful Loss in that it showed development – a particularly heady flavour of loss that was new and exciting – and that flavour was confirmed later in the season with a trophy win.
The season before, we tasted the very familiar Bitter Barrel Loss that we know well and had all the lovely notes of pain, regret and anger that we had come to know and even love. It tasted awful, but at least we knew it well. A familiar woe.
Back in 2021, we had the narrow, False Dawn Loss that tastes quite similar to the Useful Loss but tastes weird a few minutes after you eat it.
So what kind of loss was this?
It was… just a loss.
The best kind of loss, if you ask me.
Why? Well, there’s no way to look at this game and see it as anything other than two evenly-matched teams going at it for 80 minutes with one side just about edging it on the day. For the first time in years, we’re not picking through a loss looking for hope, we’re picking through a loss looking at why we didn’t win, as we should have.
There can be no mistake; this was the best possible team Leinster could field. Every single starter was a current international bar Jordan Larmour, who has 30 Irish caps. They had a heap of experience on the bench, bar Culhane, Boyle and Murphy who saw 17 minutes combined. On paper, this Leinster team should be comfortable winners, right?
In some ways, it was notable that this team was even selected at all. In the last few years, Leinster had made a point of rotating just enough for these games – home and away – that their superiority could be demonstrated almost passively. We never showed them enough to change that, until last season. So this season, it seemed that Leinster’s fully loaded team selection was almost done to prove a point. Not fully, of course, as Leinster have their own aims and schedule to manage but I definitely feel that this selection had a large serving of “let’s put these guys back in their place” about it.
The thing is, our “place” has changed.
When we look back at this game, we’ll see a plethora of missed opportunities.
Not only that, we’ll also see Leinster scoring three tries from needless errors, poor discipline or needless errors combined with poor discipline. This one stood out for a few different reasons.
On the face of it – brutal error leads to an easy run in turning a ten-point lead into three after locking Leinster out for the guts of 25 minutes.
But when you look back at it, you see the bones of what we’re trying to become as a team. We were a man down at this stage but we had a good lineout launch and we were trying to land a shot on Leinster after some good last-ditch defence down the field.
Watch Zebo running a hard loop line from a starting position on the other side of the ruck – we’re trying to create a fixed overload, even when a man down.
We run the ball through a screen and look to isolate Gibson Park on the edge with Hodnett and Ahern stacking the 15m tram and 5m tram. In this position, Ahern is essentially a 6’9″ winger.
If we can unlock Zebo on the loop, we’ll have the numbers we need to break Leinster open. Crowley creates the gap for Zebo with a sling feint – he plants his foot as if he’s slinging this straight to Hodnett or Ahern, which in turn prevents Gibson Park from blitzing into the space.
Gibson Park has to jockey in position because if Crowley does pass it, any blitz up and in by Gibson Park leaves an easy run in. Crowley instead hits Beirne, which opens up that space for Zebo – if Beirne can get the offload away.
The pass goes to ground and Leinster score but if Beirne gets any kind of width on the offload (in the face of good defence by Frawley, to be fair, who is dragging him away from the space) Zebo breaks into space with only Keenan to beat in the backfield, Casey on his inside and Hodnett/Ahern outside him.
Bad pass = bad consequences but we weren’t trying to cheese the clock – we were looking to go at Leinster whenever we could.
Munster did not play like a team overawed by Big Names or paralysed by deference. This Munster team play with No Fear.
Our first try is a great example of this – it’s a classic post-transition strike play based on excellent feinting by Jack Crowley, Simon Zebo running an excellent line into the space that feint created and then excellent finishing by Nash, Frisch and Casey.
Crowley’s role here shouldn’t be underestimated. He takes an excellent pass from Casey but shapes immediately like he’s kicking downfield with Munster’s shape outside him selling that option also. That shape to kick holds Garry Ringrose on the edge because, if he believes Munster are kicking, he’ll have to drop back into the backfield with O’Brien.
When Scannell runs that drifted “Y” line behind the fake chase unit, the strike is on and Leinster’s edge defence struggles to react.
At this stage, Ringrose has to blitz on Zebo but he’s so far out with the pass to come that he loses all impetus in the exchange. When Scannell finds Zebo, Ringrose is always going to miss the tackle because he’s trying to cover 10m of 3D space in just under two seconds.
Casey is already running a deep support line in anticipation of a break – something he’s really improved this season – and he gets the reward with the killer pass from Frisch downfield.
It was an excellent try but it shouldn’t surprise you.
A few minutes later we should have added another try but a lack of composure from Kleyn and Archer blew a near-certain seven points.
Archer dawdles with the ball trying to get set, Kleyn misreads Archer’s dip as a start of a carry so drives him on with the latch and all the while Hodnett and Ahern are waiting to latch and drive through Gibson Park and Ringrose.
Those are the moments that we’ll look back on with real bitterness because that potential seven-pointer changes the complexion of the next 70 minutes.
In the second half, we showed some decent work – especially on post-transition play – but handling errors and a lack of composure let us down at key points.
Here’s a really good example;
Scannell’s pass at the end is poor – right back at the bicep – but Coombes still should have caught it. That entire sequence is a good illustration of our post-transition thinking.
This deep structure running off Crowley is really interesting and utilises his ability to hold defenders and pass really late perfectly.
Some tighter handling there and we’re entering their 22 with real momentum. Crowley’s late passing and dangerous ball carrying created consistent opportunities for us and with a bit more patience, we could have won this game with the kind of comfort that would have shocked people.
But we didn’t. And that largely comes down to those mistakes I mentioned – poor discipline, poor maul defence and the bad luck of hobbled players being in key positions at the wrong time.
That’s what happens against a good team like Leinster but the big thing we’ll take from this is that there’s no need for hope. This Munster team doesn’t need hope anymore. They need accuracy to finish off teams like Leinster when we work hard to create opportunities designed to finish them.
With 75 minutes on the clock, this is exactly the play we train to execute. A stack of runners off a three-man pod with Butler – only just on the field – as the killer option running a drifted Y line in the third layer of the attack? This is top level stuff.
The clearout by Ahern opens up the space for Murray and we’ll be gutted that only Daly got away from the ruck quickly enough to support the play – if he’s even two footsteps closer, this is a try under the posts and the win, even with Murray’s offload fading away off his wrist.
A losing bonus point is a good reward for good play but if we want to continue this run of being peers, not challengers, we have to beat this side in Thomond Park in a few weeks.
The thing is if we convert the chances we are now constantly creating – we should. That’s a good place to be, even with this loss stinging more than usual.
| Name | Rating |
|---|---|
| Jeremy Loughman | ★★★★ |
| Diarmuid Barron | ★★★★ |
| Stephen Archer | ★★★ |
| Jean Kleyn | ★★★★ |
| Tadhg Beirne | ★★★★ |
| Tom Ahern | ★★★★ |
| John Hodnett | ★★★★ |
| Gavin Coombes | ★★★★ |
| Craig Casey | ★★★ |
| Jack Crowley | ★★★★ |
| Shane Daly | ★★★ |
| Rory Scannell | ★★★ |
| Antoine Frisch | ★★★★ |
| Calvin Nash | ★★★ |
| Simon Zebo | ★★★ |
| Scott Buckley | DNP |
| Dave Kilcoyne | ★★★ |
| John Ryan | ★★★ |
| Brian Gleeson | ★★★ |
| Alex Kendellen | ★★★ |
| Conor Murray | ★★★ |
| Tony Butler | ★★★ |
| Shay McCarthy | ★★★ |
