Munster weren’t good enough to win this game.
Yet, taken on the whole, I don’t think we deserved to lose it either so maybe a draw was the fairest outcome. We should be used to draws at this stage. This is our third in three seasons after all. Yet, if you’d offered that finish to most of the fans in attendance on Saturday night around the 50th minute, they’d have likely snatched it out of your hands and sprinted off towards the Shannon Bridge.
Even then, when the final whistle went there was a palpable sense of disappointment around Thomond Park, almost as if the air had been collectively sucked out of the stadium. Racing were outstanding here – one of the best away side performances I’ve seen in Thomond Park since Clermont back in 2014 – but the margins between Munster just about drawing this game and winning it somewhat comfortably were relatively small.
People don’t like hearing about small margins in rugby matches.
JJ Hanrahan’s 89th-minute drop goal miss from just inside the Racing 22 that could well have won this instant classic pool game for Munster isn’t a small margin. That’s just a miss from a guy who, if he was to try it again 19 times would probably make all 19. There’s no cruelty inherent in that statement, it’s just how it is for a player of Hanrahan’s undoubted quality.
It was a moment to forget for Hanrahan in a game where the rest of his work was of a really high standard. A few bits of luck elsewhere
Joe Schmidt mentioned in his autobiography about Ireland’s World Cup failure and, well, you could probably hear the keyboards and touchscreens heating up from outer space. “Small margins” sounds a little too much like an excuse to some but in the pressure cooker of top-level rugby, the pass given or not given can be the difference between a linebreak that wins you the game and a frustrating knock-on that kills momentum stone dead.
Earlier this week, I wrote about Munster’s evolving attacking shape, especially as it pertains to how we act in the moments directly after a carry off #9. The role of the link man in that scenario becomes incredibly important with regards to how he uses the options that appear to him.
But I’ve read some criticism of how Munster chose to attack off #9 in the time between the final whistle last night and the time I’ve started writing these Wally Ratings.
The key to varying your play off #9 is actually varying it. If you’re tipping on every carry, you’re not varying your attack – you’re being as predictable as trucking everything up in a slow line. And when you’re getting this kind of quick ball off Racing’s stand-back from the ruck, why wouldn’t play direct?
That created multiple phases where Racing’s heavy centre-field defence were active on their feet and oscillating between the 15m lines as Munster moved the ball across the pitch. When the ball came back to Hanrahan in the link position, he spotted the gap close to the ruck that the quick ball was designed to create.
Farrell’s role here as the pincer runner is crucial. It stands up Bird as the “B” defender and allows Hanrahan to attack the space between Bird and Chat.
You can see it clearly here – Farrell’s attack line stands up Bird and gives Hanrahan the opportunity to break back inside.
Once Munster settle down after the linebreak, we treat it like transition ball and extend the attacking line accordingly. The key points here are getting the ball to where the space is and we did that really well in this instance. Hanrahan bounced away from the ruck, took the ball straight from Murray on the next phase and was really patient when it came to picking his passing targets.
The temptation would be to sling this right to the edge but that would have allowed Racing to drift onto the wide pod of Scannell, Stander and Earls. Do it right and you could set Scannell away down the 5m tram line with Earls in support and Thomas out of the picture.
That’s almost what happened.
O’Donoghue’s pass wasn’t good enough but, that said, I have a feeling that Scannell will think that he should have taken it regardless.
O’Donoghue’s pass should have been better but we still want him passing here rather than carrying so good intent, poor execution. I’d prefer this clear example of a “work on” for O’Donoghue rather than doing the “easier” thing in trucking the ball up.
This wasn’t the only try-scoring opportunity we missed. A pass to Earls on this kick transition could well have lead to a critical linebreak.
You can see Earls spotting the opportunity and powering into the gap. Even then, the overall quality of Haley’s break – from just outside his 22 to just over halfway – created a further transition opportunity but a botched decoy line from Scannell turned the moment on its head.
Instead of getting another break on the posts left side, we end up with a lineout in our own 22 that we lose and then concede a try a few minutes later.
Look at the picture on that last ruck.
With a clean passing lane, Murray hits Hanrahan and, if JJ can beat Claassen’s blitz, it’s a three on one isolation with half the field to work with. Scannell’s approach line was unfortunately timed but you can see the intention. Stander – as in the above example – showing up on the wing in a transition opportunity. All we need to do is get a clean passing lane and we could have had a crack but it wasn’t to be.
We had a few more opportunities to score where one small moment of decision making or excellent last-ditch defence kept us out.
My point here is that we were creating these chances against a perennial top-end European peer with quality in almost every position and, crucially, two former Munster players in their rank that you could see that Racing were playing for. Two seasons ago, we only created these chances when the result was long put beyond doubt. Last season against Saracens, we didn’t create anything like these try-scoring chances – and I haven’t showed the two tries we scored – so that alone is an improvement.
You can see that some players are at differing levels of comfort with the tweaked demands being put on them ruck to ruck but that will improve with every passing week and game. From an attacking perspective, I was quite encouraged.
From a defensive POV, I felt that we gave Finn Russell exactly the kind of alignment that he would have wanted pre-game. He ended up with a way more looks at our heavy front four than we would have liked and it brought him into the game. Racing played a lot off #9. There wasn’t much fancy about it but it didn’t need to be, big men coming around the corner are always going to be dangerous. When they spotted a Munster over/underload in the primary line, they used Russell to either hit the line himself or bring in their back three, who all had effective games.
Racing’s clinicality – coupled with a few key defensive slip-ups from ourselves – gave them consistent opportunities to manage the game. When Finn Russell ghosted past the injured Jeremy Loughman to put Racing 21-14 up, they were able to manage time and territory for a good 20 minutes in the second half. That squeezed Munster’s game and made our possession way more expensive. A big scrum penalty in the 65th minute got us back into their half and, from there, we were able to engineer a leveller and an opportunity to win the game outright in the last minute.
While a draw is disappointing – and we’ll be furious with our lineout work in the first half and some of our folding decisions in defence – there was enough good stuff to hint at what might be as the squad spends more time together as a unit. Every game and every review will be crucial in that development. This performance against a serious Racing 92 outfit will age better than it felt at fulltime.
The Wally Ratings: Racing 92 (H)
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 | ★★★ |
| Tadhg Beirne | ★★★ |
| Peter O'Mahony | ★★★ |
| Jack O'Donoghue | ★★ |
| CJ Stander | ★★★ |
| Conor Murray | ★★★ |
| JJ Hanrahan | ★★★★★ |
| Keith Earls | ★★★ |
| Rory Scannell | ★★ |
| Chris Farrell | ★★★★ |
| Andrew Conway | ★★★ |
| Mike Haley | ★★★★ |
| Kevin O'Byrne | ★★★ |
| James Cronin | ★★★ |
| Stephen Archer | ★★★ |
| Billy Holland | ★★★ |
| Fineen Wycherley | ★★★ |
| Alby Mathewson | ★★★★ |
| Dan Goggin | DNP |
| Arno Botha | ★★★ |
Notable Players
I thought Mike Haley had a strong game that showed a lot of the chat from last season was premature at best and the height of spoofing at worst. His hands for Earls try were superb and he was rock solid under the high ball all evening. A few poor pieces of decision making in attack and one sloppy technical penalty brought him down, for me, but I thought he was a key part in Munster’s fightback on both occasions. He’s turning into a big player.
Chris Farrell is another guy who I thought had a big game. He was our primary ball carrier for much of the game but mixed it up with some decent passing and real impact in defence. For me, he was the best midfielder on the pitch against some quality opposition.
JJ Hanrahan should have made this kick.
As I said earlier, he’s a quality player and 19 times out of 20, he makes this kick. Disappointment over the loss of a classic Thomond Park Moment aside, and in the cold light of day, there’s no way to look at this performance and see anything else other than JJ Hanrahan being the top guy for Munster in this game.
If you want a kick that defines JJ Hanrahan, don’t focus on the drop goal, focus on this one.
Clung to the touchline, on the bad side for a right-footed kicker and he drained it to tie the game up. The try he was converting?
Conway put the ball away in the corner after Hanrahan flung a 20m pass off his left hand over three defenders.
He consistently created workable angles, defended well, and looked perfectly at home in the system. The missed drop goal shouldn’t define him. He knows he should have made the kick but not only does he know that, but it will only drive the improvement that we’ve seen from him this season. Look at it this way, without Hanrahan’s performance here we’re not even in the ballpark to look for a drop goal to win this game.
JJ’s playing with confidence, precision and with real attention to detail. Hanrahan has gone from arguably our third choice flyhalf at the start of last season to our most important player right now. Quality. ★★★★★
This week on TRK Premium I’ll be covering Munster’s lineout work over the course of the 80 minutes and looking at some of our defensive issues.
