[su_dropcap style=”flat”]I[/su_dropcap]n the grand pantheon of dramatic ends to a tournament, the section on “qualifying for the final on a Wednesday morning after a COVID walkover” would probably be located somewhere near the toilets. When the news filtered through that Benetton would play in the Rainbow Cup final because Ospreys couldn’t make the fixture because of an outbreak my first reaction was annoyance – a selfish reaction, I know. But that soon gave way to acceptance. It is what it is. Munster lost control of our own destiny in this micro-tournament when we lost to Connacht so my annoyance was misplaced frustration of an old game.
In some ways, it’s a fitting end to the weirdest of seasons. We’re in our 11th month of pandemic rugby. I just realized this the other day when I was going back over the season. The return to rugby after the first lockdown was on the 22nd August 2020, there was a three-week break after the PRO14 semi-final and then we launched into the season that is ending this Friday.
Remember this?
That was nine months ago. I know, I know, the passage of time – wow – but it’s been an entire year of no fans in the stands, no certainty that the weekend’s game will actually happen until you see the warmup or that tournaments will even be able to finish in the same format they started in.
During that time, Damian De Allende has never played in front of a full Thomond Park, Gavin Coombes ascension to being one of the totems of the squad hasn’t been seen by one Munster fan who’s paid to go through the gate, Tadhg Beirne’s run to becoming a Lion and big in-game moments like the late wins over Edinburgh, the Coombes tap and go try against Toulouse or Shane Daly’s Carbery-created try against Scarlets have had nothing but piped-in TV audio and cardboard cutouts to greet them.
The worst thing is that I’ve gotten used to it.
Hopefully, this is the last Munster game to be played under these New Normal conditions. Where we go next won’t be the Old Normal for a while but, with a bit of luck, it’ll mean people on terraces, butts in seats and noise cascading down from the stands of the Big House on the Cratloe Road by the time next season kicks off. It can’t come soon enough.
The players, coaches, support staff and everyone involved in the game has done so well to, essentially, hold their breath to get through this period with no supporters allowed in the stadiums. They’ve entertained us, they’ve kept people like me in a job and they deserve a lot of gratitude for going through the rigamarole of PCR testing, training in bubbles, chartered flights that arrive the day of the game and leave the day of the game, staying in hotels during covid (which I do not recommend, it’s like the Shining mixed with a doctor’s waiting room), social distancing and enduring the risk of playing week to week against other players going through the same process.
All of this happening in an imperfect world where everyone is learning as they go and reacting to decisions made above their pay grade with very little notice.
So let’s run the last Munster game of this bizarre season through and see what we get.
Zebre: 15. Jacopo Trulla, 14. Giovanni D’Onofrio, 13. Federico Mori, 12. Enrico Lucchin, 11. Pierre Bruno; 10. Carlo Canna, 9. Marcello Violi; 1. Andrea Lovotti, 2. Luca Bigi, 3. Matteo Nocera, 4. David Sisi (c), 5. Leonard Krumov, 6. Iacopo Bianchi, 7. Potu Junior Leavasa, 8. Renato Giammarioli
Replacements: 16. Marco Manfredi, 17. Daniele Rimpelli, 18. Nicolò D’Amico, 19. Samuele Ortis, 20. Giovanni Licata, 21. Nicolò Casilio, 22. Filippo Di Marco, 23. Michelangelo Biondelli
If you want to beat Zebre, and we do, then you attack their maul.
Sure, there are other ways to go around beating them but attacking their defensive maul is by far the most direct way to generate penalties, advance with the ball and compress them defensively. They have other areas where they are incomplete as opposed to just flat out bad, but if I was to pick one cast-iron way to get at them, it would be through the lineout maul.
I think we have that in mind, especially when you look at our starting selection. We’ve got a strong mauling pack to start with pace, power and strike running to come off the bench.
Why the 6/2 split? I don’t think that’s to do with any specific challenge that Zebre will pose, more than it gets minutes into some of the senior lads who haven’t played in a number of weeks and gives lads who are leaving – Billy Holland, in particular – a chance to retire on a more positive note than the Connacht game. I think if CJ had been available this week, and it’s a pity he’s not, then he might have been on the bench instead of Billy Holland but that couldn’t happen for reasons you have likely read about.
Other than that, as Stephen Larkham said during the Press Preview this week, Munster were always going to rotate minutes around the senior squad and wider playing group over the Rainbow Cup. This week was no different. We’ve selected a team to win the game first and foremost while resting our Lions – Leinster’s selection for the Dragons is no different in that regard – with high potential young talent and down-the-depth chart squad members sprinkled in the starting XV and off the bench.
The selection looks like one that’s built to maul, hit off the maul and work with the space that flows from that.
Technically, Zebre are relatively progressive with their maul defence. They do have a tendency to over-compete in the air in and around on their own 22 – which can lead to early opportunities on the shove – but most of the time, you’ll see them use a scrum bind entry with pre-binds on the lifters. That provides them with a good initial counter-shove defence but the problems come after that.
The gift and the curse of the scrum-bind maul entry is that it gives you could forward pressure but it leaves you open to peels – both down the touchline and infield.
When you are concerned about peels – and Zebre have to be – that puts pressure on the likes of Giammarioli and Bigi on the cover to compress in when Munster will peel infield.
That will force a pinch for the Zebre midfield cover when Munster load Farrell in the 10 channel – they’ll have to respect his ball-carrying there, which will open up space on the outside for Scannell/Carbery to use Conway and Gallagher on the loop with Coombes running a hard outside line. When Munster load Farrell on the outside edge, it’ll force Lucchin and Mori to chase out, which should leave lanes for Carbery, Scannell, Gallagher and Conway inside on the pullback.
If Munster can apply pressure at the maul – and I think we’ve got the size and variety in the lineout to allow Wycherley and Kleyn to work as maul drive components quite often – there will be plenty of penalty opportunities and try-scoring momentum.
