[su_dropcap style=”flat” size=”4″]T[/su_dropcap]he despicable weather conditions during this game ensured that it would be played out in a phonebox. In that kind of wind and torrential rain, any idea of “systems” or “attacking shape” have to be put to one side because to win a game in a phonebox, the other guy has to stumble out bleeding.

In the Red Eye, I wrote about rolling across the face of the Glasgow defence to impose our size on them but even that became difficult to do effectively in the conditions. Passing the ball over any kind of range with the speed you’d need to be effective became all but impossible because a wet ball + greasy hybrid surface + driving wind x wet hands = bar of soap.

This was a game where you had to back your maul, back your set-piece and, not to put too fine a point on it, fuck up the opposition whenever possible. I played with a South African lad over in Italy that had an idea that the opposition should always be afraid of what might happen if this stopped being a game in the middle of a match and turned into a real fight.

He thought that the boys that didn’t want to fight just didn’t want it enough and would always lose.

So when I see Knox letting the scrumhalf know that he’s around here before bullying Horne, Damian De Allende getting stuck in Wilson, Jean Kleyn getting stuck into anyone with a black shirt and a pulse, Casey fighting over a dead ball with Matawalu, Coombes taking issue with Ioane earlier in the game and laughing at him, Fineen Wycherley eating two penalties to stick a shot on Wilson and Ioane, you know what that tells me?

It tells me we’re OK with getting nasty. Do you think Munster became Munster by playing nice? I hope not.

This was a game where you had to kick, kick well, force mistakes out of the opposition, attack the set-piece relentlessly and pick up points whenever they were available but, more importantly, win every fight put in front of you.

Anything else would be dumbass rugby, which most sides want to avoid.

When you break down the statistics of this game, it shows you all you need to know about “the phonebox”. Both sides kicked 20+ times, it was roughly 50/50 in possession and territory, both sides had similar ruck numbers and there were 32 lineouts. In conditions like these, movement up and down the field with the ball in hand becomes incredibly difficult. In this type of game, penalty advantage is the gold standard because it allows

If you win your collisions in the right areas and take your opportunities, you should slowly pull away from the opposition because the conditions don’t really allow for anything else. The only problem is, concede one or two penalties and it won’t be long until the opposition are hammering on your 5m line where one slip can mean 3m conceded.

This is the gift and curse of playing phonebox rugby.

Munster’s maul has looked pretty good this season and this game was a continuance of that trend. Yes, there was the odd lineout flub but you’d expect that as par for the course in these conditions. For the most part, our lineout and maul functioned extraordinarily well.

The first try was an excellent example of some sharp practice at the lineout. Check out Fineen Wycherley going early on his shove to trigger the Glasgow infield to touchline shove.

All this does is open a lane for Holland to power through with the bulk of the Glasgow maul defence pushing on Munster maul that doesn’t actually have the ball.

This performance was punctuated by strong, dominant mauling that lead to clear territorial gains throughout the 80 minutes.

When you’ve got this kind of weaponry, you go back to it again and again, especially if Glasgow look like bailing out any second.

The same could be said for Munster’s scrum, which looked as good as it has all season. Rock-solid on their put in, destructive on ours – it’s exactly what the doctor ordered in a game like this against an opponent with whom there’s real animosity.

That’s how you win a game like this – through power, aggression, nastiness and set-piece destruction. While I’ve been as encouraged as anyone else by Munster’s enhanced attacking work during the season to date, this was my favourite performance since the restart.

We copped a penalty on this ruck entry from Wycherley but you know what else it said?

You’re in for a rough night tonight, boys. 

That’s what you want when you go away from home to a rival in leveller weather conditions. 

You’ll live with a penalty because it’s not about one moment of lost territory, it’s about sending a message.

There’s been a lot of talk of teams being “soft” as of late and one of the ways you play hard, is by putting shots on fellas that need a shot and bullying fellas who’ll be bullied. That’s not how it works in real life, but it’s how it works on a rugby field. On this form, a lot of this Munster team aren’t a bit afraid of being hard when they need to be.

Throw in as composed a halfback performance as you’ll see anywhere this weekend on top of near-complete set-piece dominance, and you’ve got a lot of reasons to be over the moon with this bonus-point win.

You don’t win a trophy for bonus pointing a weakened Glasgow Warriors side played out in carwash conditions but you can certainly show that you don’t have a trophy in you. In that regard, Munster did exactly what they needed to do.

Notable Players

This was an incredibly strong performance. The outside backs did well on a day when they wouldn’t have much opportunity with ball in hand. There was a poor slip in defence for Glasgow’s first try but they recovered well and handled the positional demands of the weather well.

In reality, this was a game for the forwards and halfbacks – who were superb throughout.

Fineen Wycherley, Jean Kleyn and Billy Holland muscled up here and won almost every collision point they entered into. Holland called a really smart lineout while Kleyn and Wycherley battered anything in a black jersey.

Archer, O’Byrne and Cronin scrummaged incredibly strongly and that was backed up by Keynan Knox, Josh Wycherley and Rhys Marshall. On an evening where no Munster man took any shit, these six lead the way.

This game was a huge test for Ben Healy and while he had one or two errors, as you might expect in the conditions, he never stopped playing and trying to play.

It’d be easy to ship the ball on during this phase but he’s looking to interest and chop out defenders to make life easier outside him.

He goal kicked well in the context of the wind and rain conditions, despite a few misses, and added real value on a night that would be sure to punish sloppy out half work with a loss. You can see him accelerating with every minute of game time that comes his way. Very good stuff with much more to come, you’d think.

On a night like this, you won’t do much if your fullback isn’t up to it positionally, aerially or defensively so, in that regard, we were quite glad to have Mike Haley patrolling the windy wastes of the backfield in Scotstoun.

He kicked superbly, dominated almost every aerial duel and impacted defensively when he needed to. There was no fireworks on transition but this wasn’t a night for fireworks – it was a night for defensive solidity and in that regard, Mike Haley is one of the best fullbacks playing anywhere on the island. ★★★★★

Gavin Coombes is at the point where, if he can back up these performances in the Champions Cup and interpros, he’ll be in the frame to start for Ireland by the Six Nations. What more can you ask for on a night like this? Solid lineout work, powerful mauling and scrummaging, dominant collisions, jackal penalties, close-range finishes and putting manners on anyone who needed manners put on them.

What more can you say at this point? He’s playing like a marquee international signing and putting in top-class 80-minute performances week after week. If last week was about scoring tries, this week was about bullying the opposition into submission – this guy is looking like he’s the realest of real deals. ★★★★★

Speaking of the real deal, how about Craig Casey? Conditions like these are supposed to temper expectations on young, 21-year-old scrumhalves. The rain is supposed to force handling errors. The wind is supposed to strangle their kicking game. Experienced backrows are supposed to intimidate them. Big wingers are supposed to run them over in space.

Craig Casey saw the script for this game and thought “Nah”.

This was a remarkable performance that, if you saw a test veteran putting it in you’d marvel at their wiles and craft. This was Craig Casey’s 16th cap. Sixteenth. None of this is normal, of course. How is he this composed at 21 years of age? How is his error rate this low? How is he picking up things that most scrumhalves don’t get until their mid-20s before he’s even reached 20 professional appearances? We are watching something incredibly special and this is the latest instalment. ★★★★★

 

The Wally Ratings: Glasgow (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
James Cronin	★★★★
Kevin O'Byrne	★★★★
Stephen Archer	★★★★
Jean Kleyn	★★★★
Billy Holland	★★★★
Fineen Wycherley	★★★★
Jack O'Sullivan	★★★★
Gavin Coombes	★★★★★
Craig Casey	★★★★★
Ben Healy	★★★★
Matt Gallagher	★★★
Damian De Allende	★★★
Rory Scannell	★★★
Calvin Nash	★★★
Mike Haley	★★★★★
Rhys Marshall	★★★
Josh Wycherley	★★★
Keynan Knox	★★★★
Jack O'Donoghue	★★★★
Tommy O'Donnell	★★★
Nick McCarthy	★★★
JJ Hanrahan	★★★
Dan Goggin	★★★