As endings to a game go, this one was as “on brand” as you could hope for.
Typical Munster.
Just Another Win For The Bad Guys.
You name it, this lived up to it.
The match clock had ticked well beyond the 84th minute when James Cronin steamed over the line for the bonus point try behind a 12 man Munster maul in a stadium dominated by a rapid Munster travelling support, but that’s just the end of the story. It feels like a familiar story but let’s tell it anyway.
I think we can say that the win hadn’t really been in doubt for much of the second half without being disrespectful to a game, gritty Ospreys side who were far from the pushovers that their lack of star names might have suggested pre-game.
A two-minute double salvo from Earls and Conway either side of the 50th minute gave Munster a commanding lead that Ospreys never really looked like closing and, had it stayed like that – a three-try, regular win – it would have been hard to complain too much. A win is a win after all but there would be no escaping the feeling that it would have been an opportunity missed. A bonus-point win away from home in the European Cup is rarely something you can pencil-in in advance but, had Munster failed to register that bonus point having been three tries to the good with 30 minutes to play against a side riven with injuries and international withdrawals, there’s no hiding from the fact that it would have been a disappointment.
Yet, with 80 minutes to play and, in the aftermath of a harsh enough lineout penalty, that looked like what we would be dealing with. A good win away from home sure, but not what we wanted.
In fact, it was the Ospreys who were the ones pushing for a bonus point with the clock in the red – a losing one – but it would have been hard to say that they wouldn’t have deserved it based on their second-half performance. The Ospreys retained the ball quite well and spent long periods in Munster’s territory. Yes, they ran the clock down at times – as they did in Musgrave Park two weeks ago – but the Ospreys did a good job of making Munster’s possession “expensive” in the second half.
We lost a fair bit of direction in the aftermath of the third try and, a few handling errors here, a few turnover penalties there and you can why, almost suddenly, it seemed to be well north of 70 minutes with the bonus point slipping out of our hands.
In a way, Munster were blessed that the Ospreys had a losing bonus point to play for because it’s the only reason the ball wasn’t kicked dead in the aftermath of this harsh enough lineout penalty.
Stander was adjudged to have passed the ball directly to the back of the maul but you could argue that Holland is in the second layer and a legitimate passing option. Either way, Ospreys had the penalty and chose to go bonus point hunting.
After 8 phases of Ospreys attack, Sam Arnold and Tadhg Beirne stepped up with a critical bit of breakdown defence.
That could well be a huge moment in this pool. From there, Munster went down the line, won another penalty for offside and then drove the ball into the corner.
From there, Munster had a tough enough job. Nailing the lineout would be critical – obviously – but the position would be hugely relevant. Taking the ball at the front is usually the safest place to throw to but the hardest place to maul from. The opponent is usually massed there from the throw and the touchline is your worst enemy.
Ospreys had set themselves up to do just that.
By the time Beirne got up and down, Ospreys would be massed to shove him back at the launch and drive Munster back and out towards the 5m line.
So Munster needed to create more space to maul into but you can’t do that without risk. Do you throw to Four and risk a contest in the air? Or do you try something different?
Munster would go with something different. A shift maul. Beirne took the ball at the front, drew out four counter-shovers and dropped the ball to Stander with O’Mahony, Archer and Botha ready to shove.
Now Munster had 8/9m to maul into with the initial Ospreys counter-shove taken out of the equation. By the time Stander got set, Munster were ready to maul into a disjointed Ospreys counter-shove.
That gave Munster the initial momentum, a clean lane to maul into and space to go around the corner for the finish. Having the nerve and skillset to take on this risky call in the 83rd minute with a bonus point on the line, having already worked their way back into a position to even get that bonus point from a defensive lineout on their own 10m line in the 80th minute, shows real character.
***
The other 80 minutes were a mixed bag. There were more than a few frustrating moments, for sure, but those moments were interspersed with the kind of attacking variety from #9 that has been a major highlight of our work with the ball in hand this season so far.
Our forwards passed the ball 35 times between them – for comparison’s sake, Leinster’s forwards had 23 passes between them and Toulouse’s had 39 – and most of those passes came in the forward pod off #9.
There was some excellent variety here.
Some of it didn’t come off but a lot of it was a hair away from creating the kind of linebreaks that we’ll need in the biggest games.
That kind of play is, in a lot of ways, a bit of a work in progress but other fundamentals of our game – breakdown transition in particular – looked right where they needed to be. Loughman’s work in the aftermath of a ball shook free from contact by Jean Kleyn produced, for me, the try of the game.
Loughman’s spin, attack line and 15m+ pass off his left hand was a moment of real quality and when you give a player like Andrew Conway that kind of space to work with, he kills you every time.
It’s not just pace – he keeps Cross off him by hinting a kick through right at the last minute before tucking the ball under his arm, turning on the afterburners and finishing in the corner.
Our work off the lineout showed some nice invention too. Not only was it rock solid for the entire game – and destructive on Ospreys throw – it provided a real platform for us to attack off.
This was the highlight for me;
How many times have you seen Munster swivelling this kind of maul feint out to the midfield or a narrow forward runner on the loop? Plenty of times. Ospreys will have seen it too, and we knew they’d seen it. This was a set-piece move designed to hack the opposition’s scouting of our lineout schemes and it almost paid off directly. Earls would score in the corner a few phases after.
That isn’t to say that wasn’t areas of concern here – our defensive scrum looked a little vulnerable at times, especially when Ospreys slid across our tighthead side. A lot of this comes down to refereeing interpretations but with Racing and Sarries to come, it needs some attention.
That will all have to come out in the wash in the next four weeks. It’s Racing next weekend, Edinburgh in the PRO14 the week after and then Saracens back to back. Those are four big scrummaging examinations and we’ll need to be better. Our overall discipline needs to improve too but the number here was inflated by 4/5 technical infringements but they all add up. If we’re carrying 14 penalties against Racing and Saracens, we’ll struggle to stay competitive.
Overall, this was a good win that did exactly what we might have planned for in advance. Four tries, five points. Elements of this performance were hugely encouraging, if a little incomplete on the whole. We aren’t fully up to speed on where we need to be – how could we be, given the disruption of the World Cup? – but there was some really encouraging individual and collective displays to enjoy.
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 | ★★★ |
| Billy Holland | ★★★★ |
| Peter O'Mahony | ★★★★ |
| Tommy O'Donnell | ★★★ |
| CJ Stander | ★★★★★ |
| Conor Murray | ★★★ |
| Tyler Bleyendaal | ★★ |
| Keith Earls | ★★★★ |
| Rory Scannell | ★★★★ |
| Chris Farrell | ★★★ |
| Andrew Conway | ★★★★ |
| Mike Haley | ★★★ |
| Kevin O'Byrne | ★★★ |
| James Cronin | ★★★ |
| Stephen Archer | ★★★ |
| Tadhg Beirne | ★★★ |
| Arno Botha | ★★★ |
| Alby Mathewson | ★★ |
| Dan Goggin | ★★★ |
| Sam Arnold | ★★★ |
Notable Players
I thought that Rory Scannell built on his excellent game last weekend with an important performance here. His work at first receiver, as a wider link player and in the carry was very nicely put together and he’s running along nicely as we head into Racing and Sarries. Great to see.
I thought Earls and Conway were exactly what you’d expect from two elite wingers; excellent under the high ball, superbly position in defence and ruthless with the chances presented to them. Quality.
Billy Holland and Peter O’Mahony had productive games that delivered big results here. Both men played a role in attacking the Ospreys lineout and were really effective handlers of the ball in phase play. The little tweaks that we’ve put into our attacking structures seem to suit their skillset down to the ground.
Jeremy Loughman didn’t play like a guy making his first European Cup start but that won’t be a surprise to anyone who’s watched his performances during the PRO14. He’s got a fully rounded skill set in open play, is a very decent carrier of the ball and is an effective defender. Scrummaging is the one area that, while not a weakness, is an area of growth for him that, if he can fully deliver on his promise, will see him challenging for Irish selection. His pass for Conway’s try coupled with a heavy phase try of his own was a real highlight and a growing example of an excellent body of work in a red jersey. Class. ★★★★★
When it comes to big game performances in a Munster jersey, there are few guys in the history of this club with CJ Stander’s hit rate. Stander was everything that you want from your #8 in this game. He was passing, he was nailing lads in defence, he was bulldozing over lads in contact, he was taking lineout ball and building mauls – it was a complete forward performance.
Stander was kicking ass, taking names and handing out receipts right at the death to players who were throwing digs at the bottom of collapsed scrums earlier in the game.
What a player. This was a bruising, belligerent performance of the highest quality. ★★★★★
This week on TRK Premium I’ll be covering Munster’s attacking structure off #9 in detail and looking at our lineout work over the course of the 80 minutes.
