Munster 51 Benetton 22

A win with more value than it might seem on the surface

Watching this live on the telly, I got the impression that Munster struggled to put away a game but limited Benetton side but further watch backs revealed a better quality win than it might seem on the surface against a well-coach, tactically astute opponent.

Match Importance

Match Quality

Match Intensity

Quality of Opposition

3.4

My big takeaway from watching Benetton in the first 40 minutes of this game was that they were a very well-drilled, well-coached side that had a very solid idea about what they wanted to achieve against Munster.

When Munster have lost this year outside of altitude – or played noticeably poorly even when we’ve managed to win – it’s been against sides who kick often and kick deep.

This describes Benetton’s game to a tee so, as you can imagine, elements of what they do well is a seriously bad matchup for Munster just based on what has worked against us this season prior to the South African tour. Ospreys, Connacht and Glasgow all either kick a lot, kick very long or both.

Why do they do this? And why is/was it effective against Munster?

I think it hinged on a few key sequences;

1. Inclement weather/a heavy pitch limits Munster’s ability to transition with the ball in hand.
2. Long kicks downfield will, mostly, be run out of the 22 by players like Haley/Healy and then kicked
3. As an off-ball side, we heavily and aggressively contest the breakdown but we concede the second-highest amount of penalties in the league as a result.
4. This indiscipline leads to kickable penalties and deep lineout-defensive sets that leak points at key times.

Now over the course of the season, this will – and has – cost games. Our poor discipline, which was on show again in this game, isn’t something that has led to a large point concession on the whole. We have the third-best defensive record in the league from a points conceded perspective but only 21 tries conceded, just one more than Leinster. That does mean that individual games, however, can find themselves in the balance depending on the penalty count.

When Munster lost to Connacht in January, we conceded 18 penalties to their 13.

When Munster lost to Glasgow, we conceded 11 penalties to their 7.

When Munster lost to Ospreys, we conceded 14 penalties to their 10.

The two losses in South Africa saw us concede 12 penalties in both games, to the Bulls 8 and Lions 6.

Discipline, the opposition’s deep kicking and Munster’s reaction to that are all connected within the confines of a specific game, if not over the course of an entire season. Benetton would have been aware of this and how their game stacked up so well with it. The discomfort you saw in Munster’s game in the first half, anyway, is an example of that.

Benetton were able to kick deep, stay patient in kicking duels and then win a few breakdown turnovers, offsides and poor tackle penalties to score points and keep Munster pinned into our own half for large stretches of the first half.

This is one of the “drawbacks” of having an aggressive, pro-active defence that you wield after an infield exit but, that said, you’ll often see us caught on the far-side back row defender like we were here when Jack O’Donoghe was caught guarding a layered attack outside Josh Wycherley and inside Shane Daly;

That seatbelt penalty was worth conceding but it’s a “look” we give up a lot as a side effect of defending on transition as we do.

Describing it as a “side effect” of a Defence/Kick sequence that Munster play is probably the most accurate way to look at it. We win a lot of turnovers relative to the amount of defending we do but with that tendency comes the opportunity – if that’s the right word – to concede a lot of penalties in the context of how good the opposition are on transition and the referee’s interpretation of the breakdown.

In some ways, Munster’s poor discipline for most of the season makes our defensive performance all the more impressive. Even more accurately, I think elements of our indiscipline are deeply intertwined with our defensive excellence in a way that can’t easily be quantified.

Whether this will be costly when it comes to knockout rugby remains to be seen but we haven’t got long until the rubber hits the road there either.

♛ ♛ ♛

With the territory differential in the first half, Munster would have to be patient and, essentially, trade kick for kick until we could play on our own terms. Against teams that kick long with a lot of frequency, you can trick yourself into snatching at low-quality opportunities from deep when your playmakers lose their patience.

You’ve got to stick with your process, you’ve got to get good length on your kicks, stay error-free under the high ball and, ultimately, you need your forwards and midfielders to get stops, poaches and impact at the opposition’s lineout when you bail out to touch.

As I’ve shown you above, Munster’s second try is a good example of all these principles against a kick dominant side.

Ultimately, you have to;

• Outkick them and stay patient. Munster had 31 kicks from hand to Benetton’s 18. Kick Dominant teams prey on your impatience and snatched opportunities so you have to deny them this, constantly.
• Win your fair share of breakdown turnovers. Benetton ran at 91% completion, which shows the impact Munster had defensively.
• Take your opportunities off the tee. Ben Healy was 100% on penalties and conversions.
• Attack them at their lineout. Munster kept Benetton at 76% completion at the lineout which is one of the worst performances of the season for them.

With these principles of play – and some really accurate work once we managed to get into Benetton’s half of the field consistently, the win came relatively easy in the end after a sticky enough start. But that’s the challenge when you take on a side who is set up like this, with the kind of backfield weapons (Tavuyara, essentially) that Benetton does. It’s mostly about patience, ignoring the crowd and sticking to what the kicking team don’t want, which is to take possession deep in their own half of the field.

If this seems like it’s a good testing ground for taking on Leinster, you’d be 100% correct. Much of what Benetton do well is equally true of Leinster this season in that they kick longer than anyone but the difference with Leinster is that they have the cardio and power to play both sides of the game. They will kick long, yes, and often but when they get the ball around your halfway/10m line in return they are very good at hanging onto possession, forcing penalties and marching you ever backwards.

So while the usual “facile” labels could well be thrown at this game given the scoreline, the manner of Munster’s comfort, in the end, suggests we have improved our work against teams that employ this tactic.

Next week, however, will be a different kettle of fish.

Notable Players

This was a really solid performance by Ben Healy. One of my major quibbles with his work this season has been that he has often looked like a guy that is overclocking situations phase to phase and, essentially, thinking so much that he’s not seeing the organic windows of space that open up for him. There were elements of that in this game too, don’t get me wrong, but I thought his pass accuracy, composure and work out of hand and off the tee were really strong.

Against an opponent like Benetton, having a guy who can nuke clearances and penalties 40 metres plus consistently is invaluable and when he’s got the range and deadeye accuracy off the tee that he had here, he’s a guy that shows his value and potential.

A lot has been said about Jason Jenkins in the last year. When he was first announced as coming to Munster, the reaction was predictably negative just as it was predictably pragmatic when the same player was announced to be moving up the M7 next season.

Jason Jenkins has been an extremely difficult loss for Munster this season – especially with RG’s knee injury – because his presence along with Kleyn would allow us to physically compete with anyone. What happens after we have parity is up to the players but with Snyman, Kleyn and Jenkins, Munster would have the tight power to match any team in Europe, South Africa or beyond.

Look at these two examples;

That type of power and size is rare, expensive and all the teams who want to win big in Europe have guys just like Jenkins in situ. Impressive.

As impressive as Jenkins’s cameo was, it pales next to Gavin Coombes impact across the full 80 minutes. Lineout work, scrummaging in the locks, dominant ball carrying, turnovers, tries – Coombes did it all here, while also showing off his passing range and all-around dominance.

There isn’t really anything that Coombes doesn’t do well at this stage. Find me a hole in his game? I’ve been looking and I don’t really see any.

Passing? He’s genuinely one of the sharpest passers in Ireland, forward or back. Lineout basics? Really good – bar one botch here on what seemed like a botched call. Defence? Wins turnovers and maxes out on tackles too. He just keeps on winning collisions all over the field, especially in combination with Casey’s passing range;

That break from Coombes created the pocket of space that lead to the try. And he’ll do this all game. When Munster can pack elite size and power in front of Coombes consistently, we will see his game move to new, game-breaking heights but even now, he’s a guy that is playing angry and making good players look like they aren’t on his level. Outstanding. ★★★★★

The Wally Ratings: Benetton (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.