We know a lot about Northampton, and they know a lot about us.
It’s just the way of this tournament that teams get tangled together for a couple of years. We’ve had that with Castres, we’ve had it with Clermont for a while, Exeter and, as of late, Northampton have been the team that we just can’t seem to avoid playing, just as we did in the late 00s and early ’10s.
This will be our fourth game against Northampton in the last two years, which is plenty of time for familiarity to breed enough contempt to make this Sunday a spicy one, as if a European Cup knock-out game between these two clubs needed the extra heat.
We beat them home and away last year, they beat us in Thomond Park this year. We’ve got business to settle, but Munster will have to do it minus all the ingredients that usually stack up with away wins in the European Cup.
In January, we lost in a yellow weather warning to this very Northampton team because we couldn’t deal with their physicality in our depleted state. With no Jager, Ahern or O’Mahony beyond the 60th minute and no Kleyn, Snyman or Edogbo from the start, we couldn’t deal with a game that drew tighter and tighter as the weather worsened.
By the end, we couldn’t get out of our half and were getting skittled at scrum time by a bigger, more physical team.
This time around, we have no Oli Jager, no Jean Kleyn, no RG Snyman, no senior tighthead on the bench, no dedicated lock replacement and, in a general sense, no front-five forward heavier than 120kg against a bigger, more physical team.
We are objectively weaker on paper than the team we fielded in January against the #1 ranked team in the Gallagher Premiership. This team has always done things the hard way but this is one of the hardest ways we’ve had to walk in a number of years.
But we can still win this game.
Munster: 15. Mike Haley; 14. Simon Zebo, 13. Antoine Frisch, 12. Alex Nankivell, 11. Sean O’Brien; 10. Jack Crowley, 9. Craig Casey; 1. Jeremy Loughman, 2. Niall Scannell, 3. Stephen Archer, 4. Tadhg Beirne (c), 5. Tom Ahern, 6. Peter O’Mahony, 7. John Hodnett, 8. Gavin Coombes.
Replacements: 16. Eoghan Clarke, 17. Josh Wycherley, 18. Mark Donnelly, 19. Jack O’Donoghue, 20. Alex Kendellen, 21. Conor Murray, 22. Joey Carbery, 23. Shay McCarthy.
Northampton: 15. James Ramm; 14. Tommy Freeman, 13. Fraser Dingwall, 12. Burger Odendaal, 11. Ollie Sleightholme; 10. Fin Smith, 9. Tom James; 1. Emmanuel Iyogun, 2. Curtis Langdon, 3. Trevor Davison, 4. Alex Moon, 5. Alex Coles, 6. Courtney Lawes, 7. Lewis Ludlam (c), 8. Sam Graham.
Replacements: 16. Sam Matavesi, 17. Alex Waller, 18. Paul Hill, 19. Temo Mayanavanua, 20. Angus Scott-Young, 21. Juarno Augustus, 22. Alex Mitchell, 23. George Hendy
That big bold H2 heading of “but we can still win this game” almost feels like I’m trying to convince myself, doesn’t it? This has been a tough week. When the knockouts come around, you really feel that figurative phantom limb of all the players you could have but don’t. What I wouldn’t give for a one-two punch of Beirne and Kleyn to be replaced by Snyman and Edogbo as part of a 6/2 split here with Jager doing a 50/30 split with Roman Salanoa.
But that’s not the world we live in this weekend.
Stylistically, I think Munster got a great preview of what Northampton can bring – in a way – against Cardiff last weekend. Denis Leamy didn’t agree with me on this when I put it to him during the week, but for me, a lot of what Cardiff do really well is also what Northampton do really well.
Cardiff kick a lot and really long, just like Northampton.
Cardiff play a heavy transition counter-transition game, and so do Northampton.
Cardiff has an excellent defensive breakdown with multiple jackal threats, Northampton do too.
Cardiff have a very physical outside backline, and so do Northampton.
The problem is that Northampton have a better lineout, a better scrum, a more physical pack and better halfbacks.
So, if their approach is similar, how do we react in an environment where we are giving up a lot of size and where we’ll have to manage the output of our front row over 80 minutes?
I think we have to play off-ball rugby. We showcased this facet of our game against the Ospreys a few weeks ago and in an environment where we’re coming in depleted – in many ways – I think it’s a risk worth taking.
The first thing to note is that Northampton are a dangerous transition side, that thrives on turnover ball, both in defence and off kicks. Knowing this, playing a game where we kick to them at a higher volume than normal is not without risk but I think it gives us a greater chance of frustrating them and using our breakdown threats to up the pressure on them. They counter-punched us in Thomond Park, we can do the same to them in Franklins Gardens.
I watched their game against Saracens recently because it featured almost the same squad as we’ll see in this game and almost every single spill of possession by Saracens was punished with a linebreak of some description. This is a good example of what I mean by that.
You’d think that kind of lineout position would be good to strike off – and it is – but the inaccuracy killed Sarries in that instance. Saints will do that to you.
Watching the game back it seemed like the only way Saracens could build any kind of pressure at all on Northampton was after restarts that they kicked deep into their half. I think we can duplicate that effect by stripping out any kind of on-ball game inside our half and using a mid-range box-kicking game to pressure them in and around their 10m line before getting the ball down the tramlines and into deep lineout position.
Any lineout inside their 10m line should have two Munster launch pods with O’Mahony and Ahern pressurizing Langdon’s throw.
By kicking to them, I think we can overload their offensive transition and bait them into playing from deep. I think they will fundamentally look to bait us into counter-transition battles but we can’t buy into that with our usual post-transition game. We don’t have the weight in the middle of the pitch to sustain it. Let’s drag them into a game where they have to create.
Offensively, they thrive off two states – the set positions of lineout strikes and the broken field of transition. If we deny them both – disrupt their lineout possession and get them into settled phase play early – we can we can hurt them.
This is a good example of their work in settled phase play. Burger Odendaal is not a natural playmaker, so we can be really aggressive on his play-action behind the screen – MAKE him find those targets.
This is where we can get the best defensive performance from Nankivell, Frisch, Zebo and O’Brien on the edges, while also opening up our poaching threats in O’Mahony, Beirne, Hodnett and Coombes. We’re coming in light up front so playing long sequences of on-ball rugby as a starter play is a recipe for blowing ourselves out early.
I think a calmer, lower energy game where we back our defence and really go after their lineout and their breakdown, I think we can counter-punch them, force them to overplay and then outlast them.
It’ll be one of our greatest ever results but I believe this team can do it.
