We have a bit of unfinished business with these lads. Then again, it’s Munster versus Northampton, it’s the European Cup, it’s Thomond Park – there’ll always be unfinished business when those are the broad strokes. Either way, this happened in the last game and it needs to be answered for.
This is still the House of Pain on the Cratloe Road and with a bit more belief and steel in our bones with every passing week in our new style, we have to remember the Old Ways, too. Blood, violence, horror under slate grey skies with the rain hammering from all angles. This is Munster Rugby, after all.
But there’ll be time for all that.
I suppose the big question coming into this game is what level of priority Northampton have assigned it internally. We know that Munster are looking at this like the Cat A game it probably still should be but, sitting here in bed riddled with COVID on a Wednesday, I’m wondering where Northampton are looking right now. A win in Thomond Park is something almost every team wants to add to their resume but, like Gloucester before them, the mundane realities of squad management in the Gallagher Premiership might take priority. I say “might” here because who knows, Phil Dowson might really want to go hard on turning their Champions Cup season around but then I look at their position in the Prem – one win off a playoff place – and their upcoming games against La Rochelle (H), Tigers (A), Sale (H) and Gloucester (H) to come and their heavy front liner usage in the last three weeks… I can’t help but wonder if this is one they dip in importance.
That doesn’t mean something as dramatic as sending over the academy, just like Gloucester did against Leinster, but it could mean a tailored approach with a frontloaded starting XV, less depth on the bench than normal and a smaller window for seeing how this game progresses before shutting up shop and going home.
Essentially, give yourself a good 40 minutes to see what way the wind’s blowing with the strongest team you have and then make a decision at halftime depending on how many shots you do, or do not, land. At the same time, a win in Thomond Park would be just the boost this Northampton side could do with after a disappointing Christmas and some massive games to come in the next three weeks.
Either way, Munster’s job remains the same. Make Northampton lose interest with a fast start and a high-tempo game that they can’t live with. But regardless of anything else, it’s a Saturday afternoon.
It’s going to be lashing rain.
It’s Thomond Park.
Time to open the House of Pain for business.
Northampton Saints: 15. George Furbank, 14. Tommy Freeman, 13. Matt Proctor, 12. Rory Hutchinson, 11. James Ramm, 10. Fin Smith, 9. Alex Mitchell; 1. Alex Waller, 2. Mike Haywood, 3. Paul Hill, 4. David Ribbans, 5. Alex Moon, 6. Lukhan Salakaia-Loto, 7. Courtney Lawes, 8. Lewis Ludlam (c)
Replacements: 16. Robbie Smith, 17. Ethan Waller, 18. Alfie Petch, 19. Alex Coles, 20. Angus Scott-Young, 21. Callum Braley, 22. Fraser Dingwall, 23. Courtnall Skosan
Northampton have looked at our game a few weeks ago and it seems that they have quadrupled down on what worked for them there in an attempt to circumvent what didn’t work for them.
They’ve essentially selected a four-lock pack to start this game. What does that tell us? Well, in general, it means a focus on close-in power on both sides of the ball, it means huge additional driving power in the scrum and a whole suite of extra options on offensive and defensive lineouts/mauls.
Why would they have made that decision? Well, as I pointed out last time Northampton’s core attacking platform is the driving maul and, this week, they’ll be really focusing on the scrum too. Over the last few weeks, Munster have shown vulnerability in the scrum to the point that it’s threatened to cost games but hasn’t to date, which goes on the general trend of the last few seasons when it comes to the scrum as a set piece that decides games.
That said, I think the Saints will have noticed how we scrummaged last time out against the Emirates Lions – vulnerable to heavy tighthead pressure on our loosehead side through the loosehead, hooker and loosehead lock triangle – and I think that will have informed elements of their selection here.
Emirates Lions heavy pressure coming through on our loosehead side caused us to pop up and run back and across almost constantly. It didn’t cost us the game because the Lions didn’t have a lineout or maul that could threaten us but Northampton will reckon that they do, even though we did a good job of stuffing them in that facet of the game last time out.
Will this inform Northampton’s approach? They had a very low PPC ratio at home with a long-ish kicking game that used the pace of their wingers to contest high bombs off #10 and longer high chases off #9. With the weather projected for Saturday afternoon, I think we’ll see a lot more of that from Northampton as they go looking for field position to force errors and look for a scrum platform. Northampton have a scrum that can win penalties but, more importantly, they have a lineout that can hurt us if they can start kicking deep into our half.
The key component of Saints’ most effective maul platform is a two-position pod structure at either end of the lineout where they’ll run a decoy pod to the back or the front, and then have the decoy pod run hard as the “punch unit” on the target.
We stuff this one quite well because Saints left too much space for their punch unit to cover so we were able to decisively win the height battle and get the first shove. We then swarmed around and prevented the transfer. We’ll need to be just as agile and “sticky” in the maul here and it’s not a shock to me that we’ve gone with a back-five build that features two heavy combo flankers that specialise at the lineout and the defensive maul.
Start there and we can take a lot of Saints’ game away from them and start building into the game ourselves.
