Pound for pound, I think this is a bigger game than the second leg we just won against Exeter in Thomond Park last week. That’s the balance of This Season versus the endless potential of Next Season. This Season Munster are lining up a massive game in the Aviva against European champions Toulouse with the tantalising prospect of a semi-final against Leinster or Leicester just beyond the horizon but as far as Next Season is concerned, we’re facing something of a trap-door situation on the overall URC log.
This season’s inaugural tournament has been marked by the second-half surge of the South African sides as, thanks to the covid disruption of November 2021, they’ve been able to string together a run of six months where they haven’t had to leave South Africa. Only Edinburgh have managed to win in the Republic this season so far and everyone else has had to console themselves with losing bonus points or absolutely nothing. That has meant that the South African sides have gone from basement-dwelling in December to frightening the life out of all but Leinster at the top of the log and, even then, Leinster might fly back home with a few worries of their own after the next fortnight, insulated as they are by rotation.
The situation for Munster is stark enough when you consider there are three regular-season games remaining. If Munster can pick up 15 points in the next three rounds, we’ll finish top of the URC for the playoffs. If we pick up anywhere between 10 and 14 points, we probably finish second. Anything between 6 and 9 points and we finish sixth, where we will likely be away to Edinburgh in the quarter-final. Anything below six points from the next three games and we finish eight and, in all likelihood, find ourselves in the Challenge Cup next season because the winner of the Welsh Shield will get one of the eight Champions Cup slots so anyone not Welsh below 6th had better get used to the idea that they’ll be the Challenge Cup next season.
So – six points at least from three games. That’s the requirement. If we don’t get those, we’ll need Leinster to do us (two!) favours in South Africa and for Ulster to beat the Sharks on the last day of the season to guarantee Champions Cup rugby but I don’t think anyone in the HPC wants that.
If you’re feeling a vague, sweaty sense of dread at that equation you aren’t alone.
Ulster, our InterPro opposition this week, have one sole focus from now on and that’s the URC. For them, the top spot and a possible home final in the Kingspan Stadium is something they’ll be very confident about achieving with a bit of luck elsewhere and that runs through Munster this Friday night. They want to get the show back on the road after Toulouse, we want to keep the show going after Exeter.
Momentum or redemption? Something’s got to give.
Ulster Rugby: 15. Stewart Moore, 14. Rob Baloucoune, 13. James Hume, 12. Stuart McCloskey, 11. Ethan McIlroy, 10. Mike Lowry, 9. John Cooney; 1. Andrew Warwick, 2. Rob Herring, 3. Marty Moore, 4. Alan O’Connor, 5. Iain Henderson (C), 6.Matty Rea, 7. Jordi Murphy, 8. Nick Timoney
Replacements: 16. Brad Roberts, 17. Eric O’Sullivan, 18. Gareth Milasinovich, 19. Sam Carter, 20. Sean Reidy, 21. Nathan Doak, 22. Ian Madigan, 23. Ben Moxham
In some ways, it’s unusual to have a must-win InterPro in the aftermath of a European knock-out game but it does allow both sides to chain three big game weeks together. If I was a betting man – and I’m not – I would say Ulster would have expended the more emotional and physical energy over the last two weeks. Whether that will amount to anything in this game remains to be seen but both sides are without key operators due to the exploits of last weekend to the point where it almost balances out.
I’ve covered Ulster quite a bit this season, so I feel pretty confident on where they are good, where they aren’t, how you beat them and how you lose to them.
You lose to Ulster by allowing them repeated access beyond your 10m line with lineout launches that they will maul, roll off the maul break through Herring or McCloskey and then work through their heavy rotation off #9 before releasing to work off McCloskey, either through the carry or the compression, if they haven’t already earned a penalty for offside, for a previous maul infringement or off-feet at the breakdown in the previous phases. That relates directly to your own discipline or lack thereof. Without penalty access, Ulster can struggle to break you down between the 10m lines.
There were some raised eyebrows at Toulouse’s tactics in this game with regards to their kicking but it made logical sense when you consider that Ulster struggle to generate breaks on multiphase possession from longer range. Ulster kicked 28 times to Toulouse’s 22, but Toulouse kicked an average of 10m longer per kick than Ulster.
This was framed as lazy transition work by some but it’s exactly what Toulouse would have schemed pre-game. Kick long to Lowry, don’t give him any angles to swerve around, build a wall for him to lose collisions against and then hem in Ulster until they kick the ball back to you – then repeat.
When you do that enough, you’ll expose running lanes around Ulster’s heavy front five deep into a sequence. Lowry will be in the backfield here – I’d be almost sure of it despite being selected at #10 – so there could be gains in attacking him on transition again. We saw the risks of kicking high on Lowry in the reverse fixture; he’s an easy man to end up giving a high shot to given his height. Toulouse took that risk out of the game.
That isn’t to say that there isn’t risk in playing off-ball against Ulster – there absolutely is – but with a smart, longer kicking game and a reduction in all but the most obvious poaching opportunities until later in the contest, you can force Ulster into overplaying, or over-focusing on McCloskey to get them the momentum they need a few phases deep.
Toulouse had a good idea of Ulster’s dual focus – Herring and McCloskey – off the maul launch too. This looks like a regular intercept but Ntamack was attacking this space because he knows that Ulster go to McCloskey in these scenarios.
Ulster want to isolate McCloskey onto Carbery. We know it, they know it. They know that De Allende will be compressing in and, as a result, there’s the outside ball to Hume and Moore that will attack a space we’ve given up consistently in the last two weekends. There will be that line on McCloskey but there will also be an out ball to Baloucoune that we can attack too. Not every lineout strike, of course, but it’ll be there.
