[su_dropcap style=”flat” size=”4″]I[/su_dropcap]f I was looking to sum up this youthful Munster side, it would be with two words – Zero Fear. Going away to Newport in absolutely despicable weather is a yearly rite of passage in the PRO14. I mean, if you don’t get a full 80 minutes of torrential rain and wind on a greasy pitch, have you even played the Dragons in Rodney Parade? After the ice-cold washing machine that was Sunday’s fixture, Munster can certainly say they got the full Rodney Parade experience for this season and, while they didn’t come through with the bonus point they probably deserved, what they showed in flashes was the kind of rugby that will move Munster forward.
You’d have forgiven Munster for box kicking the synthetic leather off the ball on a day like this. Box kick > chase > aerial duel > force error/transition > scrum > launch > tight phase pressure > try > repeat. I mean, it would probably have worked, right? But we’re not trying to play that way because we know that when we try to scale that game up, it hasn’t worked. That isn’t to say that we didn’t play with the conditions in mind – we kicked the ball 33 times and to good effect most of the time – we just didn’t pay the conditions so much respect that we played scared. Like I said, Zero Fear.
Have a look at this sequence;
This is good. You’d have forgiven Hanrahan for demanding this ball back off the screen and booting it down into the backfield but he chipped over the top of the Dragons centrefield defence knowing that O’Donoghue has the wheels to capitalize. Not only that, O’Donoghue went looking for an offload to Kleyn, succeeded and then when the ball spilt loose we didn’t try to slow things down – we went harder. Casey found Knox, we reset and when the ball came to Hanrahan this time, he found a clean kicking lane to pin the Dragons back in their 22.
Even the principles of this are sound. We knew that Dragons would be slow around the middle of the field so Hanrahan could kick over the top knowing that space would be there.
I spoke before the game about how attacking the lateral spacing of the Dragons’ tight five would be a viable tactic and how there would be opportunities for Casey to break around the fringe of the ruck if we could create spacing between our ruck progressions across the field.
That strategy lead directly to the first Munster try. We would have to get width in central areas to drag the Dragons’ tight five across the field as we wanted. Essentially, we wanted to overload their back row and midfield by running at them to expose the speed of their heavy front five as they shuffled across the field.
In this instance, we went quite wide to Hanrahan off this central ruck. Not only did Hanrahan take the ball quite wide off Casey’s pass, he also angled out at the seam between Davies and Hibbard.
Watch what happens after;
Two successive phases expose the picture we want – the Dragons’ tight five leaving a gap right next to the ruck. It was there both times but Casey picked the perfect moment to make a break into the Dragons backfield.
Once the ruck reset, the spacing we wanted was still there.
Nash’s line back against the grain preserves the picture we wanted by stopping the defensive progression and when Hodnett gets a break at a wide ruck, he’s got the same ruck fringe to attack. Hodnett got his hands free, saw the line from Gallagher and backed his skillset to get the ball where it needed to be for the finish. It was exactly what you would want – principles of play creating opportunities for players to make plays when they have a strategically produced advantage.
When the Dragons kicked the ball back to us or made an error, we weren’t a bit afraid to play ball. Nash’s try came from a poor kick to Gallagher, who broke up the field, offloaded, we won the ball back off that offload, passed out wide again and kept playing.
When the ruck reset, Scannell kicked through perfectly for Sweetnam to find Nash. If Nash doesn’t run this support line, we probably don’t score directly from this kick but he knows exactly what line he’s running and Sweetnam finds him perfectly.
The second example in that compilation comes off a turned over lineout – Barron offloads to Cronin, who almost finds Hodnett surging up alongside him but when the ball resets, Hanrahan kicks across for Nash but the plan is always to offload to Gallagher on the loop and, on a drier track, I think Gallagher gets around the corner for a bigger linebreak.
That isn’t to say that this was a perfect performance – far from it. I think our inability to hang onto the ball for much of the third quarter cost us a look at a bonus point, and that’s including the two tries we scored that were struck off by the TMO for an offside and obstruction respectively.
As you’d expect in the conditions, we had some difficulties hanging onto the ball at times but overall this was quite a satisfying performance with the young players standing out once again.
This win opened up a significant lead at the top of the conference which will give us that little bit of breathing room over the next few weeks. If a few more results go our way, we could well have the luxury of coasting through the latter half of the season but one thing is for certain after these last few weeks – the young lads who come in aren’t just treading water trying to survive, they are key drivers of results.
Notable Players
I thought Darren Sweetnam had a strong game here. He was unlucky not to come away with two tries in his back pocket but he’ll be relatively happy with a high-quality assist. This is the kind of game that shows his value and comfort in the role assigned to him in our structure. He’s looked like the guy who was close enough to an Irish squad call up a few years back over the last fortnight and this game was a good illustration of his qualities.
Damian De Allende is a world-class player. Everything he does looks impactful and, at the same time, almost effortless as if he’s beating defenders, counter-rucking like an animal and assisting tries whenever he feels like it.
He’s a study of what a world-class inside centre is supposed to look like. He’s consistently excellent and consistently involving himself at the right time and making the right decisions almost every single time.
The more our backline play alongside him, the better they look and they better they will become.
I thought Jack O’Donoghue had a really good showing here too. His lineout work was really tight but I loved the pace he’s brought into his game this season. He was always quick but he really seems to have added something athletically this season as his acceleration and top-end pace looks better than ever. He seems really comfortable in the role we’ve assigned to him this season.
Matt Gallagher scored two tries and put in the strongest Irish qualified fullback performance of the weekend to date, in my opinion. His pace, power and ball-in-two hands running style opens up lanes of attack that he seems perfectly set up to exploit while keeping the faults in the backfield and under the high ball to a minimum on a day. Encouraging stuff.
John Hodnett wasn’t supposed to start this game but I’m really glad he did because it allowed him to show just how bloody good he is, even as a year two academy player. He was the top tackler, a massive presence at the offensive breakdown and when the opportunity came to show his skillset to set up Gallagher, he was more than able for it.
His turnover in the built-up to Sweetnam’s disallowed try was a real highlight. Hodnett showed in this game that he’s got the good going forward but, crucially, the work-rate and aptitude for the dirty work that will push him very close to a starting jersey in the bigger games. An outstanding performance. ★★★★★
This season so far has been the story of Craig Casey.
He was the standout player here again on a day you’d typically describe as slogging weather for scrumhalves. He broke the line, he made excellent pass choices and, even in difficult gripping conditions, he hit his targets reliably and with his now trademark zip and width on the ball.
A lot of this game would fall on Casey’s shoulders to provide the shape we needed to stress Dragons’ central defensive unit and he did that with the calm efficiency you’d expect from a seasoned pro, not a guy this young and relatively inexperienced.
He just has a knack of making things that are quite difficult look easy, as if every young scrumhalf should be doing the same, but they aren’t. That’s the thing, at 21 years of age, Casey already looks like a guy who has a lot of the game worked out, and his performance here had the authority of a guy who will be a cornerstone player for province and country in the years to come. ★★★★★
The Wally Ratings: Dragons (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 |
|---|---|
| Josh Wycherley | ★★★ |
| Kevin O'Byrne | ★★★★ |
| Keynan Knox | ★★★ |
| Jean Kleyn | ★★★ |
| Billy Holland | ★★★ |
| Jack O'Donoghue | ★★★★ |
| John Hodnett | ★★★★★ |
| Gavin Coombes | ★★★ |
| Craig Casey | ★★★★★ |
| JJ Hanrahan | ★★★★ |
| Darren Sweetnam | ★★★★ |
| Damian De Allende | ★★★★ |
| Rory Scannell | ★★★ |
| Calvin Nash | ★★★★ |
| Matt Galllagher | ★★★★ |
| Diarmuid Barron | ★★★ |
| James Cronin | ★★★ |
| Stephen Archer | ★★★ |
| Thomas Ahern | ★★★ |
| Tommy O'Donnell | ★★★ |
| Nick McCarthy | ★★★ |
| Jake Flannery | N/A |
| Jack O'Sullivan | ★★★ |
