This week is easy, in a way.
Since Saturday evening, all the players who played and lost in Parma would have felt that crawling knot in their stomachs that followed them to the bus, to the plane, to home and into work this past week. It’s not quite guilt, it’s not quite shame, it’s not quite embarrassment. It’s all of them, and none of them all at once.
The one thing for sure is that you never want to feel it again.
It’s just sport, at the end of the day, and it is meaningless. You can throw words around like “disgrace” and “shame” around but it’s purely in the context of what a team with Munster’s budget should be doing against a team with Zebre’s budget. Munster should never be losing to Zebre Parma so while all of the following is true;
- It was an early season game
- It was only round two, sixteen rounds to go
- Had to lose to them at some point, right?
- We were light coming in and were even lighter after 15 minutes due to injury
- Zebre are dangerous at this point in the season
It doesn’t change the fact that Munster were humiliated in Parma last weekend. Yeah, it turned the club into a bit of a punchline for the last week online and put a nasty little “first” on the club’s two-week-old season. First ever Munster team to lose to Zebre after 12 years – yeah, let’s bin that one.
But it’s in the past now and can’t be changed – so how can we make it useful?
For a start, you want the players to be motivated by it but, at the same time, not scarred by it either. You want a physical response from the players with Zebre in mind – the forwards in particular – but you don’t want fellas heads to meltdown with “here we go again” the second something goes wrong, as it almost certainly will.
The challenge is mental, emotional and physical. All three challenges will need to be nailed to overcome an Ospreys side that almost certainly smells blood in the Cork air this week as they travel to Virgin Media Park.
Put yourself in the Ospreys position.
They’ll have reviewed that game last weekend. Would you be scared of this Munster team after watching that?
No chance.
The Ospreys are one of the best turnover teams in the league. What would you do after watching Munster’s soft work at the offensive breakdown last week? You’d go after it. Ospreys have the players to do it. You’d kick almost every possession you get, you’d kick long while you were at it, chase hard up the edges and force this Munster team to clean transition rucks at speed. Then you’d just play what comes from that. All that’s on paper, though.
Whatever way you slice it, this will be an incredible challenge for this group to overcome the psychic damage of last week in an orange weather warning for wind and rain on a 4G pitch.
We’ll see what a lot of lads are made of, that’s for sure.
Munster: 15. Mike Haley; 14. Calvin Nash, 13. Tom Farrell, 12. Bryan Fitzgerald, 11. Shay McCarthy; 10. Jack Crowley, 9. Craig Casey; 1. Jeremy Loughman, 2. Niall Scannell, 3. Oli Jager; 4. Jean Kleyn, 5. Tadhg Beirne (c); 6. Peter O’Mahony, 7. John Hodnett, 8. Jack O’Donoghue.
Replacements: 16. Diarmuid Barron, 17. John Ryan, 18. Stephen Archer, 19. Fineen Wycherley, 20. Gavin Coombes, 21. Conor Murray, 22. Tony Butler, 23. Jack Daly.
Ospreys: 15. Max Nagy; 14. Iestyn Hopkins, 13. Owen Watkin, 12. Phil Cokanasiga, 11. Ryan Conbeer; 10. Dan Edwards, 9. Reuben Morgan-Williams; 1. Steffan Thomas, 2. Dewi Lake, 3. Tom Botha, 4. Huw Sutton, 5. Adam Beard, 6. James Ratti, 7. Jac Morgan (c), 8. Morgan Morris
Replacements: 16. Sam Parry, 17. Garyn Phillips, 18. Ben Warren, 19. Lewis Jones, 20. Harri Deaves, 21. Luke Davies, 22. Jack Walsh, 23. Keiran Williams
Given the weather expected for this game, it’ll be primarily about three things in ascending order of importance; lineout, scrum, discipline, and control of territory.
Our starting pack selection is very much focused on the first two things on that list. Without Edogbo and Ahern – both still injured – this is probably the most lineout-focused pack we can select right now. With the weather being what it is, it’s fair to assume that we’re going to have a lot of lineouts to work with, on both sides of the throw, so selecting a core of counter-jumpers in the back row is a smart play.
Last week, the Ospreys barely competed in the air against the Stormers – that’s why Stormers ran at 100% off 20 lineouts, practically unheard of – but I’d imagine they’ll fancy having a cut-off Munster’s set piece this week, given how wobbly it’s been for the last two seasons, never mind the previous two games. They don’t have Justin Tipuric for this one, which is a slight advantage to Munster in that area of the game, but James Ratti will fulfil most of the same lineout role. They won’t be as active in the counter-launch as they would if Tipurc was playing, but they’ll still get after us early to sow doubt in what has been a fragile area of our game.
Looking at their back row build, I think they’ll have a few goes at our throw early on given the weather – they’ll look to give us a lineout almost immediately to facilitate this – but I think they’ll mostly try to keep Morgan, Morris and Lake heavily active on our first phase possession, something they can’t do if one or more of that unit are involved in counter-lifts. They are going to be a little overprotective of Dan Edwards at #10 and Conbeer on the blindside wing on the second phase, so that will pull some of their counter-lifting resources away.
Here’s an example of when they threw two counter-pods into the air against the Stormers last weekend;
The Stormers went right after Edwards through Dave Ewers, but Morgan was clung to Edwards’ inside shoulder and helped get a stop. Look at how quickly the Ospreys flood the channel on the openside, though, and the gap that opens on the inside seam against the grain.
In truth, they don’t really try to hide Edwards – he almost always blitzes aggressively with Morgan and his inside centre tucked right in alongside him.
I think Edwards is almost bait for teams off the lineout. You think you’re going to nail him but you’re almost always going to run right into Morgan or Cokanasiga, or both and by the time you get the ball recycled, the centre of the field is filled and your momentum is gone.
There is an opportunity to be had in baiting the Ospreys by screening on #10 but then playing out into the layers to attack the space outside Cokinasinga and inside Watkin.
This will then pull their wingers infield, or force them to jam in to cover. This gives us opportunities on the second phase and opens up opportunities to get after them in the air on crossfield kicks kicking back to where we took the lineout. Conbeer is 5’10”, and Hopkins is 5’8″ – we need to isolate them with Jack O’Donoghue, Calvin Nash and Shay McCarthy whenever possible.
Fundamentally, the Ospreys are an off-ball team with a good lineout game, an iffy scrum – we’re built to really go after this both starting and off the bench – and a fearsome defensive impact. Quite frankly, we only want to engage their primary defensive unit – Morgan, Morris, Lake, Cokinasinga and Watkin – on our terms. In the last few games against the Ospreys, we’ve always done well by not hanging onto the ball too long.
They certainly won’t give us much to work with offensively in the middle of the field. Expect a kick-to-pass ratio of around 1:3 from them, and we shouldn’t be far behind. Kick long, kick often and back the lineout and scrum to keep us in the right areas of the field.
