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Castres 13 Munster 16

Grit, composure and tactical savvy gets the job done in Castres

It looks like a last-minute smash and grab - and it was - but this was a Munster win based on a smart tactical approach, regained composure and the kind of ballsiness you just can't buy.

Match Importance

Match Quality

Intensity

Standard of Opposition

4.3

This was a fascinating tactical duel between two well-drilled, well-coached teams on an icy night in the south of France.

It was bone on bone iron on iron stuff at times, but that’s exactly what you’d expect from Castres, who are as tough a team to play as there is when it comes to raw stylistic matchups. They excel in being extraordinarily sticky to play against. They don’t go away, they don’t jack games in and they contest every single moment.

Their defensive lineout is a good example of this. Munster coughed up three good positions at the lineout but it was in the face of constant counter-launching by Castres, who often threw two pods into the air on Munster’s ball.

That isn’t an excuse. Munster should have nailed our own possession in those moments without question but it shows the environment and Castres approach in creating that environment. Nothing easy. Combine that level of aerial traffic with a few finger-slipped throws and handling errors in the air and you’ve got a microcosm of this game. Intent to play, both sides competing for everything and more than a few errors.

♛ ♛ ♛

Pre-game a lot of the media noise was focused on Munster’s style of play, as it has for much of the season, albeit with the volume turned up significantly in the aftermath of the dour win over Castres but, in particular, the defeat to Connacht a few weeks ago. Munster’s kick heavy performance in that game was considered emblematic of Van Graan’s tenure and, in combination with the announcement that he was leaving three weeks prior, every game since has been looked at through something of a distorted lens.

This is to be expected, unfair as it is because we’re in the highlight reel era. It doesn’t matter that Munster have lost twice all season long and generally played pretty good stuff prior to the two-month spell without a game due to COVID; perception is what it is.

Munster’s approach this season has generally been pretty expansive, despite what you’ve heard elsewhere. We’ve had a PPC rating of 1.1 across the season to date but that approach/outcome has varied from week to week depending on the opposition. Against Connacht (PPC of 0.76) we played as badly as we did against the Ospreys (PPC of 1.6) but the rest of the games have generally fallen between a rating of 0.9 and 1.2 – that’s where the sweet spot seems to be for this team.

At a PPC rating of 1.13, this game fits right into the window of what we’ve done in most games this season. We had real intent to play here – our selection demanded it pre-game – and any other approach would have been idiotic against a side as gnarly as Castres. I spoke pre-game about a need to get Castres moving and to stress the lateral movement of their very heavy pack while, especially in the first half, depowering and defanging their lineout and lineout maul.

O’Mahony and O’Donoghue are hugely effective at this side of the game.

This was a back five selected to be mobile, move at range and that could be aerially versatile as well as limber in the maul. Stopping Castres force vs force would work on occasion but we would need to be aggressive with our intent – kill the maul, not stop and slow it.

Offensively, we would need to be able to extend our lines to challenge Castres’ middle of the field defence. Where Castres were heavy – their forward defensive line – we would have to be prepared to move the ball beyond them.

This is a good example of how that starting back five selection worked – Beirne and Wycherley handling in a sequence with O’Donoghue running that hard edge line as the “lone wolf”.

Look at how that passing sequence which, again, doesn’t just happen, exposes Meka at the end of Castres forward defensive line.

You could see the same principle when Murray broke into space off a central Munster scrum. Kafatolu, Castres’ openside, was the guy expected to do most of the covering but his size and power left him open to being attacked too. Munster’s best attacking moments came from attacking this principle – stretching Castres laterally and getting the ball into the layers. If we could expose that lateral movement with short, layered passing to take out Castres line speed, which changes every phase, we could expose the space in a gradual way.

There are no easy schemes against Castres because Joe Worsley’s defence doesn’t give up constant space with consistency that you can build towards. A lot of teams defensive scheme leaves consistent space somewhere but Castres are very individualistic. There is no consistent space, except for space baked into certain launch points. Munster knew this and attacked accordingly.

If we know that Castres are slow off the side of the scrum, that means we know they’ll compress to cover the space so we used Rory Scannell to unlock that with a kick pass.

If the second kick pass – off a short, layered pass from O’Donoghue to Crowley – goes forward instead of drifting back, this is a try but Crowley will learn. He hoovers up match data like an AI to the point where his development week to week from the Ulster game to this one is marked. There was an opportunity to kick into the space Castres heavy defenders were struggling to cover, which is more proof of concept, but that’s a tough picture to unlock in the moment for Mike Haley.

All throughout the game, Munster were looking to stress Castres with the ball in hand. We tried to do this with the kind of variety that we have done for most of the season. Again, this wasn’t an accident – it was to a specific plan.

Handling errors at key moments let down that plan, but it was there. Anyone who tells you it wasn’t either didn’t know what to look for, doesn’t have the current game IQ to understand what they were looking at even if they were or doesn’t want to see it.

This wasn’t Munster fluking a win. This was Munster going after an opposition weakness through offensive action and, sure, being let down by handling errors but the intent to go after it was there pre-game and constantly throughout the game.

♛ ♛ ♛

Castres tightened their game up completely from 50 minutes on. They were unusually expansive by their standards in the first half but the second saw them kick almost every possession to squeeze Munster’s backfield. An error from Jack Crowley lead to a scrummaging sequence that produced a kickable penalty to push Castres ahead.

Another kicking sequence lead to another kickable penalty to take the lead out to four points. This was a lack of discipline from Mike Haley in the head of the moment but it’s classic Castres.

This is what Castres do. They kick long, they chase, they pressure the receipt and force you to play on your terms. You’ve got to stay patient in these circumstances, retain your collective composure and keep your error count low. When we slipped, we conceded six points and struggled to get out from under Castres kick pressure.

We had opportunities, however. Remember we spoke about catching Castres on the opposite wing to the one they’ve kicked from?

This was one of those moments where, next week, Jack Crowley finds that space.

That still left a lead to chase down. We knew coming into the game that Castres leave room at their defensive breakdown. They did against La Rochelle, they did against Perpignan so that left Tadhg Beirne with the space to do what he does and that’s win breakdown penalties.

Eventually, that lead to the last gasp opportunity with five minutes on the clock. Munster were rejected from the previous lineout but landed this one. They mauled, they got to the try line and Gavin Coombes had the power and composure to snatch the win at the death.

Where other teams have choked in the recent past, this Munster side stayed patient and kept their composure. That’s more than can be said for a lot of people, actually. Munster at our worst in the last few years have been reactive and lacking in composure, even while suffering from a power differential. While we made too many handling errors here, we approached this game with a complex game plan and a selection to match it. We struggled to adapt to Castres kick pressure in the third quarter but waited for the window to strike and landed the killer blow.

There’s a lot to like about that.

Top Two Performers

This was another Peter O’Mahony masterpiece. Every year he’s written off, every year he keeps coming back with performances like this where he’s at his unplayable best. Your lineout ball is actually his lineout ball.

Your maul possession is always a shift of bodies away from becoming his maul possession. His offensive lineout game is as explosive as ever, even under heavy pressure, and when we needed a steady pair of hands to take the final lineout, who else would you go to only Peter O’Mahony?

A big player producing big moments. ★★★★★

Gavin Coombes is a top player. Better than CJ Stander was at the same age and producing the kind of big moments in games that big legacies are built on. He made a few passing errors in this game – uncharacteristic for him – but he kept playing and kept winning collisions.

His try right at the end was big moment stuff but I loved his reaction after the try. Maybe he’s not looking at anyone in particular here. I like to think he’s eyeballing an in-game enemy. Someone in the crowd that you get one of those weird 80-minute parasocial relationships with where you hate them and they hate you but you got the last say.

Or maybe he’s just letting the home crowd who the Godfather of the West Cork Mafia is.

That reminds me of Anthony Foley. That attitude. That “fuck you” energy.

That is the action of a totemic player landing critical moments when it counts.

As long as he keeps doing that, the sky is the limit. ★★★★★

The Wally Ratings: Castres (A)

The Wally Ratings explainer page is here.  

Players are rated based on their time on the pitch, if they were playing notably out of position, and on the overall curve of the team performance. DNP means the player did not feature and N/A means they weren’t on the pitch long enough to warrant a fair rating.