Does it feel that Munster are doing better than last season? Or worse?
The consensus of the last few weeks seems to be “worse” but the recency bias of a few high profile losses might be distorting that a bit but results are what they are as of late and losing to Leinster/Ulster/Saracens will always sting.
Statistically though, where are Munster relative to this point last season?
Well, 10 games into the PRO14 in 2018/2019, Munster were sitting on 34 points. This season, after the same number of games we’re sitting at 30 points so, worse off certainly, but far from a disastrous slip year on year if we’re talking about points gained perspective in the PRO14.
In Europe it’s harder to compare because we’ve got a completely new set of opponents but if we purely look at points gained and wins/losses it’s very similar. This year we have 11 points, two wins, a draw and a loss. At this point last season we had 12 points, two wins, a draw and a loss. So not a massive difference, I think we can agree.
To properly compare performance year on year, especially after a significant portion of the season, we’ve got to look at the difficulty of schedule. Basically, this is where things like the strength of your selection relative to the opposition and how that affects the overall difficulty of the fixture. Every week I keep a record of all these metrics to keep track of progress and mark each category – our selection strength, their selection strength and the Relative Opponent Rank of each game on a scale of 1-3.
A pretty much full-strength selection – with leeway of 2/3 players depending on their importance in the depth chart – gets a score of 3. A half-way rotated selection gets 2. A fully-rotated selection with a tonne of fringe players and academy selections, or a heavily injury affected selection, gets a 1.
Here’s a quick explainer of what Relative Opponent Rank means using two identical fixtures as an example.
Last season, Munster played Edinburgh in Musgrave Park. We had quite a strong selection that week – Murray, Conway, Earls, Beirne, O’Mahony, Kilcoyne, Scannell, Ryan and Chris Farrell – which would get the highest rank (3) under my teamsheet selection.
Edinburgh, on the other hand, almost completely rotated their side for that game and only featured 3/4 guys who’d feature in our quarter-final against them a few months later. That selection got a teamsheet ranking of 2 as a result because they had their starting flyhalf Van Der Walt and key guys like Van Der Merwe.
That means the Relative Opponent Rank for this game was the lowest possible – 1 – because we were at home and, man for man, had a much stronger team selection relative to our opposition.
This season, Edinburgh had a full side out (3) and we heavily rotated the squad (2) given the short turnaround time between Racing and Saracens due to the compressed Champions Cup schedule this season. That meant the Relative Opponent Rank of this game – the difficulty, essentially – was ranked as a 3.
Using this rank across the two seasons after 14 games, we can get a picture of the relative difficulty of the fixtures.
2018/2019 After 14 Games In PRO14 and Europe.
| Opponent | Munster Selection | Opposition Selection | Location | Tries Scored | Result | ROR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cheetahs | 2 | 2 | H | 6 | W | 1 |
| Glasgow | 2 | 3 | A | 1 | L | 3 |
| Ospreys | 3 | 2 | H | 6 | W | 2 |
| Cardiff | 2 | 3 | A | 2 | L | 3 |
| Ulster | 3 | 2 | H | 9 | W | 1 |
| Leinster | 3 | 3 | A | 3 | L | 3 |
| Exeter | 3 | 3 | A | 1 | D | 3 |
| Gloucester | 3 | 3 | H | 5 | H | 2 |
| Glasgow | 2 | 2 | H | 3 | W | 2 |
| Cheetahs | 2 | 2 | A | 4 | W | 2 |
| Zebre | 2 | 2 | A | 4 | W | 1 |
| Edinburgh | 3 | 2 | H | 8 | W | 1 |
| Castres | 3 | 3 | H | 3 | W | 2 |
| Castres | 3 | 3 | A | 0 | L | 2 |
| Combined | 35 | 35 | 55 | 28 | ||
| Average | 2.571428571 | 2.5 | 3.928571429 | 2 |
2019/2020 After 14 Games In PRO14 and Europe.
| Opponent | Munster Selection | Opposition Selection | Location | Tries Scored | Result | ROR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dragons | 2 | 2 | H | 5 | W | 1 |
| Kings | 2 | 3 | A | 4 | W | 2 |
| Cheetahs | 2 | 3 | A | 1 | L | 3 |
| Ospreys | 2 | 2 | H | 4 | W | 2 |
| Cardiff | 2 | 2 | A | 4 | W | 2 |
| Ulster | 3 | 3 | H | 3 | W | 3 |
| Ospreys | 3 | 3 | A | 4 | W | 2 |
| Racing 92 | 3 | 3 | H | 2 | D | 3 |
| Edinburgh | 2 | 3 | H | 1 | L | 3 |
| Saracens | 3 | 2 | H | 1 | W | 3 |
| Saracens | 3 | 3 | A | 0 | L | 3 |
| Connacht | 3 | 3 | A | 1 | W | 3 |
| Leinster | 2 | 2 | H | 0 | L | 3 |
| Ulster | 2 | 3 | A | 2 | L | 3 |
| Combined | 34 | 37 | 32 | 36 | ||
| Average | 2.428571429 | 2.642857143 | 2.285714286 | 2.571428571 |
The key takeaways that I have from this list – which I’ve been keeping for the last three seasons for use in the Red Eye – is that this season on average we’re starting slightly weaker team selections than last year, against slightly stronger opposition selections on average.
Year on year, the Relative Opponent Rank has increased this season from last season with a combined score of 36 this season compared to 28 last season. That number is inflated by a way tougher European Cup pool than last season and really tough, compressed run of games – relatively speaking – since the home fixture against Racing 92.
We’ve scored 17 fewer tries than last season but last season’s number included two home fixtures against weakened opponents (Ulster and Edinburgh) where we scored 17 tries in two games.
Our season hasn’t been a vintage one so far this season but I think we’ve been disproportionally disrupted by the World Cup and subsequent minute-minding, a few injuries (that everyone has, in fairness) and tough Champions Cup schedule that the likes of Edinburgh and Scarlets haven’t had to deal with.
They will be affected by Six Nations call ups in February/March so there’s an opportunity for Munster to go on a run from February on in the PRO14. Europe depends entirely on this weekend so thinking beyond that is pointless.
