Flipping this Arms Park hoodoo has more significance than you might think.

The last two times we’ve rocked up in Cardiff, we’ve left with our asses in a sling one way or the other. Changing that script up is a lot harder than it seems, especially against a Cardiff Blues side that, even after this result, I still think are better than their current run might illustrate.

The biggest focus will, naturally, be on Munster’s attacking form but the overall coherence of Munster’s performance was the most pleasing thing to me. Even without 12 internationals, we managed to look solid in the scrum, ran a near faultless lineout on both sides of the throw and defended with real quality for much of this game. And then, of course, there was the attack.

From a numbers perspective, Cardiff had more carries, more passes and slightly more rucks than we did so when you’re looking for some sort of numerical illustration of how Munster won this game. We didn’t pass more than them, we actually carried the ball less than them (for more metres) and kicked more than them.

But what we did have was more variety in almost every facet of our attack.

It can be illustrated in something as simple as this;

A pass to a big forward, with two layered runners to his left and right, and with a creative, agile #10 running behind them looking for an offload lane behind Cardiff’s high blitz. Layered forwards running onto the ball from a deep position with defenders slowing up on their blitzing lines?

Do it right and you’ll get linebreaks.

It’s a small change, in reality. It’s looking for a linebreak rather than looking to pre-build a ruck but it has wide-ranging implications for how Munster are looking to play the game this season.

If you look at Munster’s work last season in similar situations, you’ll see similar structures but, and this seems to be key, very different execution. The threat of the layered runners was rarely used and all too often, these situations led to a static enough carry of the ball with the layered forwards on clean out routes.

Munster had a few of these in this game too but there was enough variation and, even more importantly, the threat of variation to keep the Blues guessing and when the opposition are guessing, there are breaks to be made.

On the above GIF, for example, Cardiff have four legitimate threats to worry about going on what they had seen from Munster to this point in the game and specifically two phases before.

1. A straight up carry from O’Shea into the inside seam of the Blues blitz.
2. A straight up carry from O’Shea into the seam of the Blues blitz where he offloads to Loughman in contact on his left shoulder.
3. A swivel pass to Hanrahan in the second layer.
4. A tip on pass to Botha coming at pace on his right shoulder.

Botha starts this attacking set closer to Hanrahan and O’Byrne than O’Shea and that adds to the changing picture that the Blues were reacting to.

Throw in the depth that we’re operating on, which adds to the legitimacy of these defensive questions, and you can see how space would be generated.

Cardiff have to come out to meet O’Shea and, as they press, they have to trim their line speed to match the options that Munster have on this play. We’ve established threats and, as a result, can now attack with more efficiency. All we need is the right decision from the ball handler.

At a basic level, this game is about getting your guys running at their guys with a momentum advantage. If they’re slowing down right as you’re accelerating, then what happens?

You have a great chance of breaking the line.

But you’ll only slow their line speed if you can bring the defenders into space, create multiple options over the course of the entire game – not just on that play – and then drill your timing and approach lines. You need to build the variety week to week and then phase for phase. In that regard, Munster are doing a very good job but you can’t just wing it – you have to have detail from your attack coach and, in Stephen Larkham, we’ve got one of the top guys around.

The other key to attacking Cardiff would be giving Hanrahan and others licence to attack the seam of the Cardiff blitz.

I wrote about this pre-game in the Red Eye.

We knew that Cardiff can, on occasion, over blitz outside their “C” defender and, as a result, that can create an isolation in the middle of the defence, rather than on the edge, for the first receiver to have a cut off, either with a pass/offload or a carry himself.

Munster had great success with this. Our depth from the gain line and consistent option building on almost every carry point was a key aspect. As I went through above, because every carrier had options that we had shown through the game that we were willing to use, it became easier to create linebreaks.

Essentially, decoy options only work if some of the decoy options aren’t decoys, if that makes sense.

The best try of the night was a combination of all of these principles. After Oliver dispossessed Jason Harries coming in off his wing on a typical Cardiff overload play.

When Munster retained the ball, there was a bit of a slowdown. Where was Mathewson? He wasn’t running to the ruck – he was staying on the wing. And for good reason.

The question here was – would Munster go from essentially inside our own 22? We knew that Cardiff would look to blitz hard here so, if we could screen possession back to Hanrahan, we might be able to go after their primary line speed leader.

Two passes from O’Byrne to O’Connor and O’Connor to Hanrahan set the transition opportunity in motion.

Hanrahan has a chop off his man, who’s stopped his advance after the double pass from O’Byrne to O’Connor, and beats him.

Once the break happens, Mathewson is in the perfect position to take the pass from Hanrahan and continue the break.

Goggin, scorching up on the outside, links the whole transition attack together with a key take, draw and offload.

It was very, very good. I thought we managed the opening half and tricky wind conditions excellently and never looked like we’d ran out of ideas. That’s a key point on our attack this season – we’ve rarely looked like we’ve gotten to the end of a preplanned sequence of phases, or even that there’s necessarily a set sequence of phases to follow.

Bigger tests await but when we compare this game to the last two in the same stadium, especially without an injection of what we’d call “Big Names”, this result feels significant in and of itself.

The Wally Ratings: Cardiff Blues (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.

Names	Rating
Jeremy Loughman	★★★★
Kevin O'Byrne	★★★★
Keynan Knox	★★★★
Darren O'Shea	★★★★
Fineen Wycherley	★★★★★
Jack O'Donoghue	★★★★
Chris Cloete	★★★★
Arno Botha	★★★★
Alby Mathewson	★★★★★
JJ Hanrahan	★★★★★
Alex Wootton	★★★
Dan Goggin	★★★★
Sam Arnold	★★★
Calvin Nash	★★★★
Shane Daly	★★★
Diarmuid Barron	N/A
Liam O'Connor	★★★
Stephen Archer	★★★
Jed Holloway	★★★
Conor Oliver	★★★
Nick McCarthy	N/A
Tyler Bleyendaal	N/A
Rory Scanell	★★★

Notable Players

Keynan Knox was always going to be under the spotlight in his first start and, after a tricky opening, I thought he grew into the game excellently in the loose and at the set-piece. He was very unlucky not to win a massive scrum penalty right on the stroke of halftime after annihilating the Blues loosehead and hooker. A very decent and encouraging first start for The Wall.

Chris Cloete and Jack O’Donoghue were always going to have a busy day in defence given the way that Cardiff like to attack and I thought bought stood up excellently. Cloete mixed excellent line speed with a disciplined approach at the breakdown. Jack O’Donoghue hit everything with a heartbeat and a blue shirt all evening long and was a nightmare on defensive lineouts and mauls. Both men were ruthless at the breakdown too.

Arno Botha had a really physical, heavy day here. The quality of his defensive stops and close range carrying never fails to impress. He’s a complete back row forward and we’ve been lucky to have him here for the last two years.

Kevin O’Byrne had a super day out here again. Solid basics, excellent hands and real pace – if he keeps this up as we scale up in opposition he’ll make an excellent case for an Irish jersey and I’m dead serious on that.

Dan Goggin had another standout performance in the Munster backline, this time in the #12 shirt. He can kick, he can offload, he can wallop lads in defence, he’s got pace – he’s looking like the real deal. Chris Farrell looks like he’s the man in possession of the #13 shirt but the more Goggin plays, the more he looks like the guy who should be wearing the #12 shirt.

Calvin Nash looked like a guy who’s growing into this game at this level. He’s got pace and agility to burn on top of growing defensive maturity. If this guy continues to deliver on his promise, he’ll be wearing an Ireland shirt before long.

Alby Mathewson was one of the defining guys in this fixture. Two tries and one direct assist doesn’t tell the whole story of Mathewson’s influence on this result. He’s got a keen understanding of tempo and flow that only the most experienced scrumhalves get and he showed off all those decision making abilities here. His defensive kicking was mixed, for sure, but he more than made up for that with top quality attacking work. Class. ★★★★★

JJ Hanrahan ran this game. I spoke beforehand about how this game was set up for him but it’s something else to go out there and do it. When he plays like this, he looks like a fella that could have an influence in any game at any level. He broke the line, offloaded, and varied Munster’s attack all through this game. Outstanding. ★★★★★

Fineen Wycherley was everywhere. When I watched this video back late on Saturday night I half expected to look up from my laptop to find him in my kitchen. He pulled a double-double here – 10 plus carries for positive metres and 10 plus completed tackles – which will show you just how busy he was here but he looked like a guy that had gears that he could yet go through, while also being the dominant forward on the pitch. His rucking was superb, his carrying light-years improved from last year and he’s turning into a relentless hitter in defence. He’s got the right edge of lunatic aggression that any lock forward needs and seems physically incapable of taking a backward step from anyone. This was the performance of potentially a very special player in waiting. ★★★★★

There’s much to cover in this game and I’ll be doing that in TRK Premium all week long with GIF and Video Articles.