We’ve gotten to that point of the season where there is no more wiggle room for Munster in the United Rugby Championship log. The changes that have come into effect this season – new league format, Shield system and the Big Four South African sides – have all combined to create the slow-motion bloodbath that we’re witnessing right now.
Anyone who doesn’t think that Munster are in a knife fight for the top four – let alone top two – is codding themselves.
Our underperformance in South Africa – two points from the entire tour – has put us under real pressure as the regular season shakes out. We have five games left, including this one on Friday evening at 19:35 in Musgrave Park. In the last few rounds, we have Benetton (H), Leinster (H) – the Champions Cup Round of 16 – Ulster (A), Cardiff (H) and Leinster (A). In my estimation, we need 19 points out of that run of games to be fairly sure of qualifying in the top two without looking for favours. A return of 16/17 points will probably be enough to finish top four but we’d be looking for other sides to drop points unexpectedly. That means winning in Ravenhill or the Aviva against Leinster, or perhaps both. Every point matters now.
The Sharks, for example, are lurking in the relatively shallow water of 6th with 36 points but that’s deceptive. They have six games left (five of those at home) with all of their Springbok compliment available to them bar Lukhanyo Am. If they go unbeaten at home for the next few rounds, they could easily find themselves floating around 60 points which could well be enough for a top-two finish. That run would bump everyone else down and make Ulster vs Sharks on the last day of the regular season a de-facto playoff game before the playoffs.
And that’s before we mention Edinburgh and Glasgow, who have the softest run-ins of any side in the playoff spots.
For Munster to avoid getting lost in the shuffle and, god forbid, finding ourselves heading back down to South Africa or up to Ravenhill for a quarter-final we have to win this game in Musgrave Park with a bonus point. Anything else drastically destabilizes our run-in and leaves us looking for bonus point wins in Ravenhill or the Aviva which, while certainly possible, are not anything you’d want to NEED to get with the pressure on.
With that comes pressure and, with a six-day turnaround and 9400 kilometres travelled since last Saturday, the potential for a banana skin on what promises to be a dry, balmy March evening in Cork.
Benetton Rugby: 15. Andries Coetzee, 14 Ratuva Tavuyara, 13. Joaquin Riera, 12. Tommaso Menoncello, 11. Rhyno Smith, 10. Tomas Albornoz, 9. Dewaldt Duvenage (c); 1. Ivan Nemer, 2 Tomas Baravalle, 3. Nahuel Tetaz, 4. Irné Herbst, 5. Carl Wegner, 6. Sebastian Negri, 7. Manuel Zuliani, 8. Toa Halafihi
Replacements: 16. Matteo Drudi, 17. Federico Zani, 18. Simone Ferrari, 19. Niccolò Cannone, 20. Matteo Meggiato, 21. Callum Braley, 22. Giacomo Da Re, 23. Tommaso Benvenuti
Benetton have been changing their game since the takeover of the Bortolami/Gustard/Ongaro/Masi coaching crew at the start of the season and you won’t be surprised to learn that it dovetails completely with what Italy are trying to do at test level.
Kieran Crowley’s Italy handled the ball less than any side other than France and kicked the ball longer than anyone… other than France in this year’s Six Nations. Benetton, as of late, do exactly the same, more or less. Nobody in the URC this season has kicked the ball more than them and only two sides (Leinster and Glasgow) have kicked longer than them.
As with any kick pressure side, the voluntary surrendering of possession is always for a purpose that goes beyond just kicking the ball away because they are “out of ideas”. Benetton kick on phase play and on most kick transitions to generate lineouts and to cut down on their handling errors on phase play. I think most people associate Benetton with offloading rugby – most likely from their run to the PRO14 Quarter-Final in 2018 – but that isn’t really what they’re about in 2022. They will still offload, don’t get me wrong, but they are more about attacking efficiently and making smart decisions in possession. When to kick, when to play – this is what Benetton have tweaked and their captain, Duvenage, is the key decision-maker in this regard.
For the most part, Benetton will kick long, take your kickback to them, up and under that ball back to you, pressure those first few transition phases, take the kickback from you and then boot long – even at the risk of giving you a “mark” – so you look to kick the ball to touch.
From there, they can bring their primary offensive game into action. Statistically, Benetton have the best lineout in the URC this season with a 93% success rate. When you think of Benetton you don’t really associate them with being a lockdown lineout team, right? Well, they are and their kicking game is designed to produce that platform where they can get runners like Halafihi into the game on first phase and then try to be as efficient as possible in the phases thereafter, albeit with a ticking clock to the next kick if they’re losing tempo with Duvenage making the calls. They are prone to making handling errors two or three phases deep into this sequences, and coughing up near-intercepts, so keep an eye out for those.
Benetton’s lineout supremacy is under threat at the moment because of a bit of an injury/suspension/unavailability crisis at hooker. With Els injured, Hame Faiva suspended and Lucchesi rested because of Italian duty, Benetton have had to draft one of their young permit players – 21-year-old Mogliano prop Matteo Drudi – in as the hooker replacement on the bench. Something to look out for in the second half.
With any kick pressure team, you have to resist the urge to play into their game too much. When you do kick, you’ve got to go long, low and diagonal into the backfield to limit their ability to kick contestably – Healy and Scannell will be important here – and force them to kick from deep and concede lineouts of their own.
The missing piece of Benetton’s game is their defence. For a side that kicks as much and as long as they do, they need to be forcing a lot more turnovers at the breakdown and in the tackle. Halafihi is the main threat over the ball at the breakdown on transition and, weirdly enough, their 5’8″, 82KG fly-half Albornoz has seven breakdown turnovers, with a lot of those coming on the edge. They do concede a lot of penalties here though, the kind of defensive penalties that undermine a lot of the game plan as it currently stands.
For Munster, the key will be bringing the kind of counter-attacking zip we saw against Dragons. On the hard, fast surface of Musgrave Park in good weather, Munster should have the platform to attack off most of the kicks Benetton send our way. Benetton will give us opportunities on transition and, if we’ve got the accuracy, there are a lot of tries out there. I also expect Munster to have a dominant platform at the scrum and off the scrum, where Benetton are quite vulnerable to two-phase strike moves from deep – look for Coombes to set the platform for someone like De Allende to get the kind of collisions that he will win against this Benetton midfield.
With enough accuracy, our biggest source of tries could well be Benetton’s own game plan and kicking tendencies. We’ll see how it shakes out – our season could well depend on it.
