This was a healthy, dominant bonus-point win that was somewhat scuffed up by a decidedly poor last 15 minutes that allowed the Ospreys to buff the scoreline in their favour. That shouldn’t take the gloss off a win that put Munster 8 points clear at the top of Conference B with a game in hand before Monday night’s results, but it is worthy of note all the same.
I wrote before the game (and recently about France) about the Ospreys’ use of long kicks as “transition bait” where they look to pressure the actions after the kick receipt to produce favourable pictures. That can be breakdown pressure or a poor kick return. This was an example of the latter from the first half;
Sweetnam’s receipt was pressured really well by the Ospreys and his kick didn’t find touch as a result. The Ospreys’ linked across the field, Lydiate did a good job of bumping Coombes off the edge and Protheroe slipped past Hanrahan before finishing through Morgan.
That’s pretty much classic transition bait.
The start of the slip in the second half came from much the same principle, even though it didn’t involve an Ospreys kick to start the transition event.
Munster spilt the ball in possession after a poor pullback pass from Barron to Healy and, in doing so, we entered into a disrupted transition phase. This is where playmaker decision making is important. First, watch O’Donoghue calling for an angled box over the top into an empty backfield. McCarthy misses the opportunity and instead sends a pass back to Scannell.
From there, I think the real play had to be moving the ball across the field but instead, the ball gets kicked to Protheroe, who is out of Sweetnam’s pressure range. The Ospreys have a massive pocket of space to play into and the position they earned from this break lead to their second try.
The third Ospreys try came off the back of a sequence of scrum penalty concessions and losing O’Donoghue to a 10-minute sin-bin on a fair enough call deep in our own 22.
We’ll be disappointed with our work in that last 15 minutes but the reason I mention it at all is to highlight how irritated we should be with a 38-22 win that should have been closer to 50-10 by fulltime. This is a decent Ospreys side that had a good few internationals dotted through their team but we still should have stuck 50 points on them without necessarily playing out of our skins here.
That is a frustration, but it’s also a hint of where we’re going.
This game was ultimately decided by Munster’s power, both in the maul and in our work off the maul.
The first example here is a good look at a move we’ve been using variations of all-season – the maul tilts infield on the break to cut off the opposition forwards, the pass goes to the scrumhalf on an angled run before popping the ball to the midfielder running against the grain. All the while, Sweetnam runs towards the space up the side of the maul and if he’d taken a pass from Scannell in that instance, he’d have made a big break.
The second example came after really strong maul drove the Ospreys pack back 15m before breaking infield with a nice pinch slide move that we used throughout the game to quite a bit of success. The principle is quite simple – the first carrier runs a diagonal line at the last edge defender, the decoy runner attacks the second last defender and the sliding player attacks the space outside.
The third example (Healy’s pass to Haley) was an example of the kind of space that it can create and how effective it was in producing positive pictures in this game, even if the execution was slightly off on some phases.
The most satisfying part of the game for me was how efficient we were in Ospreys’ 22. Time and again we earned good field position through penalty advantage and we exploited almost all of them sooner or later.
Much of the scoreline can be attributed to this clinicality. Our third try came off the back of a short-range maul. Coombes took the ball at the front, Cronin held the touchline side and, once our maul pivoted around, it was all over for the Ospreys.
The highlighted “chain” in the above video was almost impossible for the Ospreys to defend legally and it worked by trapping four defenders on the touchline side, where they were completely ineffective. Munster essentially had a 10 v 4 shove once the ball reached O’Byrne and that’s not something anybody can hope to defend.
When you’ve got power in the tight five, you can nail these opportunities and I thought our starting pack dominated a strong Ospreys selection. Dan Lydiate chewed through 21 tackles in this game but it didn’t really have an effect when Munster were winning so many collision points.
Here’s Coombes with a Cronin latch getting over the gainline against Lydiate AND Griffiths – neither of whom are shy in the impact tackle stakes – and the collision win is such that Munster earned a penalty by Griffiths getting trapped in the ensuing ruck.
That’s the kind of power we need to wield. Our scrum, while Fineen Wycherley was on the field, was the strongest it’s looked all season and his grunt was noticeable by its absence when he was off the field. Look at the full eight-man shove coming through on the Ospreys put-in here.
That’s all very good stuff.
The trip to Glasgow next weekend will be a different beast to this game but if the forward power on show here is duplicated in Scotstoun, we’ll be in a good place. This was a good result with an imperfect performance over a decent opponent which when you consider that we’re on a five-win spin since the start of the season, isn’t the worst way to be chugging along at all.
If we can keep this chain of momentum going, there’ll be no telling where we end up.
Notable Players
This was a pretty good performance on the whole.
JJ Hanrahan was unfortunate to go off quite early here but Ben Healy looked well balanced when he came off the bench. We know that Healy has a monster boot on him – he showed that off the tee and out of hand here – but the challenge will be if he can vary his game to include all facets. That’s going to be slinging passes, that’s going to be defence and it’s going to be making breaks when they’re on. If he’s going to become a complete player, that’s the route and he made some big steps along the path in this one.
He’s growing into the position with every minute of game time. Good to see.
Jack O’Donoghue played superbly here and further illustrated the step up in performance he’s made since the lockdown. He had a hand in almost everything – maul defence, lineout takes, ball carrying, breakdown work, work in the wide channels – he’d nearly kick goals for you too. He’s an invaluable player who looks like he’s only going to get better. Real quality.
I thought Jean Kleyn and Fineen Wycherley really paired well with each other in this one. They scrummaged incredibly well, dominated defensive and offensive collision points and bullied the Ospreys in the maul. A really strong display.
Craig Casey continued his future starting international roadshow with a calm, measured performance that belied his young years – again. At this stage, do we just have to assume that it’s the norm with this guy? This was another assured display with a very low error rate, decisive breaking and control over his forwards when it mattered.
He’s got zero panic in him either. Look at him working maul law 16.a by ensuring that the ball never leaves the maul by keeping it pinned to the last bound player so that reinforcements can arrive. Ospreys don’t commit players because they think the ball is out but it isn’t.
That adds an extra few metres on the maul. The most dangerous guys on the pitch are the lads who are quicker than you, more accurate than you and know the rules better than you. By that criteria, Casey could be the pound for pound most dangerous guy on the pitch.
It would be a mistake to assume that there was anything normal about Gavin Coombes performance here. This was remarkable. I think it was midway through the first half when I began to think of who Coombes reminded me of in this game. Think about it – who was the last guy who scored a bucket of tries, showed up almost every week with top-quality performances and bossed almost every involvement?
It was CJ Stander from 2014 to 2016 before he became a regular Irish international and test Lion.
Jogging through multiple defenders from a standing start? Stealing lineouts? Winning every single collision? Taking lineout ball driving mauls over the line? None of this is ordinary, this is Special Player stuff and the only thing waiting for Coombes at this stage is showing at the European level. If he can do it against the likes of Clermont, Harlequins and Leinster – and we have no reason to believe that he won’t – then he’ll be wearing an Irish test jersey by the spring.
Pure, raw dominance in almost every moment he was on the pitch. Outstanding. ★★★★★
The Wally Ratings: Ospreys (H)
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 | ★★★★ |
| Fineen Wycherley | ★★★★ |
| Jack O'Donoghue | ★★★★ |
| Tommy O'Donnell | ★★★ |
| Gavin Coombes | ★★★★★ |
| Craig Casey | ★★★★ |
| JJ Hanrahan | N/A |
| Matt Gallagher | ★★★★ |
| Damian De Allende | ★★★★ |
| Rory Scannell | ★★★ |
| Darren Sweetnam | ★★★ |
| Mike Haley | ★★★★ |
| Diarmuid Barron | ★★ |
| Josh Wycherley | ★★★ |
| John Ryan | ★★★ |
| Billy Holland | ★★ |
| Jack O'Sullivan | ★★★ |
| Nick McCarthy | ★★ |
| Ben Healy | ★★★★ |
| Dan Goggin | ★★★ |
