There isn’t a lesson to be learned from this defeat.
Well, there is. That opening header isn’t totally true. “Kick your points when they’re on offer” would be my main takeaway from this game if we’re talking about lessons to be learned. Munster had an opportunity to kick for a losing bonus point in the 75th minute…
… but chose to go down the line instead, got turned over on an attempted loose maul and that would be that for Munster’s losing bonus point.
When you consider the outcome, it was poor enough decision making. It’s ballsy decision making if we’d stuck this loose maul and driven up to the Saracens line.
It’s a great stop by Ben Earl on Stander and it does enough to separate the ball carrier from Boomer and Archer. That stops the maul from forming with big momentum on Earl and Farrell. I think this was a callback to this move from the Bulls in Super Rugby but we weren’t quite accurate enough in our set up. CJ loses the initial collision – part of the plan – but our double latch around the contact point wasn’t accurate enough. Ideally, we’d be connecting under CJ’s shoulders to drive him through the initial contact – making the maul – with Wycherley and the rest adding the power for the big push.
Small margins.
Hanrahan could well have missed the kick, as he did from a similar distance and an opposite angle earlier in the second half, but when the turnover comes on the very next play not taking the points that are tentatively on offer becomes a bad decision by default. The leadership group backed themselves to score a try or, failing that, earn a closer range penalty and didn’t get what they wanted. For that, they will be criticised and there’s no escaping that, rightly or wrongly.
We came away with nothing when we perhaps deserved at least a losing bonus point. But, as we know, you deserve what you take in European rugby and if you don’t take, you don’t deserve.
There’s no gallant defeat or moral victories here and that’s the point, I think.
We have moved from being comfortably second best in Coventry to being sour at a narrow enough loss in Allianz Park. That, in itself, counts as an improvement. The gap is tightening but a gap remains all the same.
That gap reflects the reality is that this game finished four match points to nil. That’s 5-4 over the course of the head to head. We’re still second and remain in control of our destiny, for the time being, although the trip to Paris in January is now very much in the “win or bust” category. Winning in Paris would represent another closing of the gap we’ve been chasing since our semi-final loss to Saracens in Rassie’s first season but that’s for another day.
If anything, though, I think we’ve improved to the point where we can judge this game in those terms stark terms. We went to the home of the European champions, lost O’Mahony before the game, Beirne after 10 minutes and then Ryan after 24 minutes and still came relatively close. Those personnel changes didn’t disrupt us initially but began to take a toll later in the game, especially as we headed into the last quarter.
A lot of people have highlighted the missed penalty after the fracas in the 49th minute as being a key moment – and it is if we’re just looking at kicks made and missed – but this lineout on 60 minutes was critical for me.
It’s a bold decision – a shortened lineout – and a good counter launch from Isiekwe to affect the steal but that turnover gave Saracens the field position from which they would eventually score their first try. Moments like this are where you miss your elite pace jumpers – O’Mahony and Beirne – and this one certainly was costly. Munster conceded a lot of penalties in short order on this defensive set but we were under serious gainline pressure.
Saracens hit one Vunipola for a big gain line win, then another to soak up three defenders.
It was punishingly physical. Saracens would take a scrum from the penalty advantage earned a few phases after this and really squeeze our red-zone defence. Munster can feel a little hard done by after the penalty conceded by Hanrahan after the first scrum.
Hanrahan contested that Billy Vunipola’s change of bind at the back of scrum ended it and, thus, the offside line on the 5m line. Pascal Gauzere disagreed, so the turnover was reversed.
Billy Vunipola would make no mistake the next time and put Maitland away for a try.
Even then, Munster still had opportunities to crack Saracens.
By the time April rolls around, I think you’ll see us making the last pass in moments like this.
The depth on Haley’s attack line is close to spot on for me – ideally, a stride closer to the halfway line – and we’ve created a picture that we would have wanted. When we’re really where we want to be, we’ll be giving the pass here.
Close.
We had a significant sliding door moment a few minutes later.
We had found some success with the quality of our long and medium-range passing over the course of the game – here in particular – and the above example was a half a second away from putting Farrell away down the tramline.
Earls was trying to transfer the ball across his body to create the break but an excellent defensive stop from Maitland killed the move and his subsequent kick through would put Saracens in position to all but seal the win through a Mako Vunipola try.
We were starting to flag, ever so slightly and it started to show on that last big sequence of defence.
And then came the end game.
We defended really well, for the most part. We scrummaged very well, for the most part. Our lineout was solid, for the most part. I still think we’re missing a few big ball carriers in the pack – and that showed in how hard we had to work for attacking space – but the quality of our passing and alignments were pretty good. Compared to last season, the improvement is really visible but, in the hardest Pool of Death in the Champions Cup since the Clermont/Saracens/Ospreys/Saints group of 2017/2018, or the Munster/Clermont/Saracens/Sale pool of 2014/2015, it’s not showing quite yet.
To leave Barnet with nothing tangible hurts more than I’d have thought pre-game.
Denying Saracens a bonus point was a success in and of itself but we wanted more and should have left with more.
But we didn’t.
We’ll move onto Connacht with a lot of regrets but enough encouraging signs of development to hint at what January, and Paris, might hold.
The Wally Ratings: Saracens (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 | ★★★ |
| Niall Scannell | ★★★ |
| John Ryan | ★★★★ |
| Billy Holland | ★★★ |
| Jean Kleyn | ★★★★ |
| Tadhg Beirne | N/A |
| Jack O'Donoghue | ★★★ |
| CJ Stander | ★★★★ |
| Conor Murray | ★★★ |
| JJ Hanrahan | ★★★ |
| Keith Earls | ★★★ |
| Rory Scannell | ★★★★ |
| Chris Farrell | ★★★★ |
| Andrew Conway | ★★★ |
| Mike Haley | ★★★★ |
| Kevin O'Byrne | N/A |
| Liam O'Connor | ★★★ |
| Stephen Archer | ★★★ |
| Fineen Wycherley | ★★★ |
| Chris Cloete | N/A |
| Nick McCarthy | ★★★ |
| Dan Goggin | ★★★ |
| Tommy O'Donnell | ★★★ |
Notable Players
There weren’t any poor performers for me. This was a good, incomplete performance that fell short rather than the wildly unbalanced performance we saw in last season’s game.
John Ryan had a hugely effective first 25 minutes, with some really strong attacks on Mako Vunipola and he was a key loss early in the second quarter. Our scrum never really looked the same when he went off, despite the best efforts of Stephen Archer.
I thought that Rory Scannell and Chris Farrell had very strong games here. I’ve been looking for a bit more hands and a little less carrying from Rory Scannell over the last few games and while he was still looking for contact a bit too much for my liking here, I felt that he was more effective than he had been in previous weeks.
The quality of his sling pass is really starting to stress top-end defences, too.
Only an excellent defensive stop by Malins prevented Conway from finishing off this excellent pass from Scannell. A good outing against quality opposition.
I thought Chris Farrell had a really good game here, his third in a row against Saracens. He was consistently dangerous in possession and made a number of quality defensive stops and strips. Farrell is a top-class midfield option and he showed it here against big opposition.
Mike Haley has been consistently good this season and I thought this was another strong performance from him. He’s super solid defensively and under the high ball but he’s really starting to come on from an attacking POV and you just got the impression here that he was a hair’s breadth away from a serious break. Haley has really improved this season and I think he’s got more room to grow.
CJ Stander had a very effective day on both sides of the ball and was going right until the end. He’ll take the rap for the call at the end – it’s the captain’s burden – but his work around the field was unendingly physical. With Dave Kilcoyne on the sideline, Stander has taken a lot more ball-carrying responsibility but he remains as effective as ever. A high-quality performance that will age really well.
I thought Jack O’Donoghue and Billy Holland had big days out but they just fell short of a 4 star for me. O’Donoghue’s defensive work and mauling was effective and Holland kept going all day but I felt they lacked that little bit extra on the attacking side of the ball.
My star man was Jean Kleyn. I thought to myself before kickoff that he needed a big one here after a World Cup where he took all the flak for Toner’s omission but then barely got any time to show why out on the field. This was his best game for Munster this calendar year in my opinion. His scrummaging work in the second row was unbelievable against heavy, top-quality opposition.
He was a heavy presence for us on the ball and at the breakdown but the quality of his defensive stops all over the field was top notch.
In a match filled with giants in black Nike shirts, he stood up and stopped the best of them dead in their tracks. Quality.
