[su_dropcap style=”flat” size=”4″]T[/su_dropcap]he pressure cooker of Munster vs Leinster seems a world away from the damp evening that is predicted in Treviso but that does not lessen the importance of this rescheduled Round 5 game. For me, this game represents an opportunity for a Munster side shorn of their 10 internationals to wash away the frustrations of last week’s loss ahead of a mid-season break before the eventual run-in.
Our closest competitors in Conference B tied their shoelaces together last week by losing on the same weekend that we did so the buffer we have built so far this season didn’t take too much of a hit. With Scarlets playing Leinster this weekend there’s an opportunity for Munster to stretch out our lead to 13/14 points before the test window break. With five games to go after this weekend’s contest, a win here followed up by a win in Edinburgh in February with a few favourable results elsewhere could well book our final place with a few games to spare.
That’s got to be the aim. Our opponents, Benetton, are in the midst of a difficult season, to put it mildly. That doesn’t mean they aren’t a dangerous opponent here but they have found it incredibly difficult to put results together this season and are winless so far in the PRO14. This isn’t the Benetton we’ve come to know over the last few years. Kieran Crowley’s four years in Treviso had seen them go a side that would regularly finish in the bottom two of the old PRO12 to a side in 2018/19 that surged to a third-place finish in Conference B ahead of Scarlets and Ulster before losing a quarter-final in Thomond Park to a kick of a ball. They didn’t do this by tightening up their game and playing the percentages – far from it – they played a game based on width, high tempo and the kind of structured offloading that was ahead of its time in a lot of ways. When I look at the way Benetton took the 2018/19 PRO14 season by storm – remember they beat Edinburgh, Glasgow and the Scarlets in Treviso that season, frightened the life out of the Scarlets, Cheetahs and Edinburgh away from home, and drew with Ulster and Leinster in the Kingspan and RDS respectively – I saw a side that had a lot of the same qualities as the Japanese side who would take the World Cup by storm later that year.
That season proved to be something of a high watermark for Benetton. The following season ended up being a damp squib in comparison. Sure, it was disrupted by the World Cup and that pandemic yoke that you might have heard of but a lot of the things that stuck the previous season weren’t working to the same level the following year.
This season, I think Benetton are probably the best 0-9 team I’ve ever seen.
They had the toughest schedule of any side other than Munster at the start of the new season – they lost away to Ulster first up, then to Leinster at home and then Scarlets away. A COVID outbreak dusted their next two games – our fixture being one of them – and, when they recovered, they were right in the middle of the Autumn Nations Cup. Decimated by test callups, they lost their next two games. Benetton pulled out their best performance of the new season to date when they got their test guys back against Stade Francais but they’ve been a picture of in-game inconsistency since then, losing to Agen and then Zebre twice.
It seems like they’ve, all of a sudden, ended up on a killer losing streak and, with rumours of bad vibes around the squad, Kieran Crowley has been asked to leave his deal a year ahead of schedule.
Club president Amerino Zatta said: “Crowley’s arrival has undoubtedly allowed us to take another step forward for the growth of our club. We are grateful to him for the results achieved, reaching the PRO14 finals series and being recognised as the best coach of the year.
Sporting director Antonio Pavanello added: “We have reached the end of a cycle. It is natural to make a series of assessments and make decisions. However, there is still a second part of the season to face and our focus will have to remain on it, working professionally to obtain better results than we have had to date.”
Keiran Crowley has a few excuses if he wants to use them. They’ve been really close to a few decent results but for some maddening errors at key times, they’ve been absolutely buckled with injury – especially in the front five – and they’ve been hurt more than most by a long test window.
They might be bottom of Conference B but they are better than their 0-9 record might seem.
Let’s have a look at the teams.
Benetton: 15. Jayden Hayward, 14. Angelo Esposito, 13. Joaquin Riera, 12. Ignacio Brex, 11. Tommaso Benvenuti; 10. Tommaso Allan, 9. Callum Braley; 1. Thomas Gallo, 2. Tomas Baravalle, 3 Marco Riccioni, 4. Irné Herbst, 5. Federico Ruzza, 6. Marco Barbini (c), 7. Manuel Zuliani, 8. Toa Halafihi
Replacements: 16. Corniel Els, 17. Nicola Quaglio, 18. Tiziano Pasquali, 19. Eli Snyman, 20. Giovanni Pettinelli, 21. Alberto Sgarbi, 22. Luca Petrozzi, 23. Leonardo Sarto
Statistically speaking, Benetton have the worst scrum in the tournament this year from a numbers perspective.
They have the lowest completion percentage in the league (82%), the least amount of scrum penalties won and the second last amount of scrum offences committed. Kieran Crowley and Benetton have addressed this directly a number of times on their website by pointing to their injuries and long term international commitments in the front row. A lot of those issues are still present. One of their worst performances of the season in the scrum was away to Connacht back in December and a lot of the front five personnel present that night will be involved for Benetton here.
I’m seeing a lot of weight coming through from Robertson-McCoy on Quaglia in the initial few scrums here and I’d expect Salanoa to apply the same kind of forward pressure on the inexperienced Thomas Gallo in this one. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t be looking to put the ball in and keep it there on our own ball while having a right pop on theirs. I think there’s a big role for Niall Scannell, in particular, to have a right cut off his opposite number on either put-in.
If you find Benetton down to 14 men at any point, it’s always worth keeping an eye out for a break off any kind of scrum with some forward momentum because they’ve been caught napping on the fringe repeatedly.
There’s similar success to be had with the maul. Benetton have tended to over-compete in the lineout this season and it’s left them short-handed on long-range maul sets repeatedly. Even when they don’t compete, a lot of teams with inferior mauls to Munster have managed to stand up Benetton and then turn the corner on them repeatedly for big surge gains.
Have a look at these examples and keep in mind, I was limited to a minute of footage. I could have put three minutes of footage together from multiple games where Benetton suffered at the maul when teams turned around the corner on them.
As you can see in the second example, a good maul break that extends the lines quite quickly can catch this Benetton side flat-footed coming across the field. There’s a big responsibility on Ben Healy to find this extension but I’d go as far as to say that Rory Scannell could be more important in finding structure off the maul break. Benetton tend to overcommit on mauls because they have tended to lose ground to a committed offensive unit, Toa Halafihi can get caught in quicksand if he’s the forward defending the fringe so if you can stick Halafihi/Zuliani on the fringe of the maul, there’s space to be found if you’ve got the hands.
This example is exaggerated because Benetton are down to 14 men but the principle is the same regardless of their numbers.
Getting lineouts and scrums to attack Benetton on is another story. You can force them into a box kicking game to pressure the receipt of the ball specifically to generate a knock-on from them while living with any knock-ons you might commit as long as you stop the ball and force a scrum. If you’ve got scrum dominance, this is a decent tactical baseline.
However, I think a good kicking game off #10 is incrementally more important against Benetton because they have tended to lose territorial kicking duels once they commit to the kick. Benetton – Jayden Hayward in particular – are dangerous when they commit to a counter-attack direct off the kick but when they kick back, they often leave the openside of their kick transition defence quite open and underpopulated.
Zebre almost got away a few times but the real opportunities came when they hit a wide-wide position after the first kick transition.
If you can put some layers on your next phase after securing wide-wide ruck position, there will be space right up the middle of the field if you can get two early passes to that position on a 3-2 shape.
Munster use this general shape and phase structure quite a bit as it is but it can be extra effective against Benetton. You can actually see Munster rehearsing this very structure in their training montage from earlier in the week.
Benetton are not without danger themselves but if the scrum is in Munster’s favour and we kick effectively in tandem with the scrum, we should have the ability to prevent them from getting any kind of field position. If Munster can secure deep lineout possession against Benetton, our maul can score tries on them. That’s usually true of any side when you’re on the 5m line but it applies to Munster from as far out as the 22.
