[su_dropcap style=”flat”]T[/su_dropcap]he challenge isn’t necessarily beating Zebre, as many teams have this season, it’s in how you beat them. You don’t get any extra points for style – unless you count winning bonus points, which I guess actually is extra points for style – but in a week where Munster’s Rainbow Cup ambitions were officially ended by a COVID walkover for Benetton, I think we needed a dominant performance to end the season. An exclamation mark of sorts. It’s not a final against the Bulls – the Connacht game cost us that, in reality – but it was an opportunity to go away to Parma on a nice summer’s day and put the hammer down for the last time at the tail end of the longest, weirdest season of rugby in living memory.
After some early Zebre possession, Munster swung into gear off the back of some well constructed, confident strike plays off the lineout that transitioned into incisive yet patient phase play.
This kind of slick progression play – where a team moves from a pre-ordained strike play off the set-piece into phase play – is what you see from a team who aren’t worried about overplaying early in the game. This doesn’t feel like a relatively “conservative” kicking play but if you count the phases, this was Munster kicking tactically after three phases on possession around the halfway line.
Of course, what always helps is when you have guys who can dominate collisions off #9.
Enter Dave Kilcoyne. This might not be as flashy as a collision that might make a BOOMFA highlight reel on Youtube, but Kilcoyne buries his man in contact here.
He gets a metre over the gainline but he does it with such pop and acceleration that the poacher can’t but infringe after the contact. That’s a crystal clear illustration of the power of dominant ball carriers off #9 – in this instance, it leads directly to a penalty in prime field position.
And once Munster were able to get this down the line through the boot of Carbery, the maul was the obvious weapon to go for.
I wrote before the game about Munster’s intent at the maul and how it might work best against a game but incomplete Zebre forward unit. A key point was riding out their initial scrum bind shove and then peeling around them once their counter-shove reached its apex. Check out the first real maul setup that Munster used.
- Simple throw to the front.
- Ride out the counter-shove.
- Peel around and advance
It was enough to earn a penalty for a collapse which Munster converted in the most efficient manner possible. That is to say, they gave the ball to Gavin Coombes and let him do the rest. No big deal here, just Coombes beating four Zebre defenders at close quarters and bombing through three tacklers on the try line.
This kind of cool shit is just what Gavin Coombes does at this stage. Zebre had nothing for him at this range. You can see his opposite number, Renato Giammarioli, a good player with test caps for Italy, just crumple back as he makes contact with Coombes as if he tried to tackle the side of a house.
This kind of work from Coombes has become commonplace but it shouldn’t really be seen as normal – this is high-level power and collision winning. It would be far from the only example of that during this game, especially when combined with Munster’s slick, physical work off the set piece.
This sequence of set-piece, strike, possession, set piece, strike, penalty, set-piece, pressure, penalty opened up another close-range lineout opportunity which Munster executed in the efficient manner we discussed earlier.
Munster feinted a maul, soaked up the counter-shove and then broke off the back through Coombes who banged over his second try from close-range.
Zebre have numbers here but they aren’t able to get a stop on Coombes from this range. Again, not something that every back-row is doing or is capable of doing. Sure it’s “only” Zebre but it wasn’t all that long ago that we saw the Skibbereen Hammer doing this to the European Champions.
The maul was always there for Munster as the game progressed – take, eat up the surge, peel, power through.
From there, the game played out as a formality. Munster rotated the bench on the field and got good minutes into some of the younger players. Jake Flannery, Thomas Ahern and Roman Salanoa showed up really well. Flannery, in particular, showed some really nice passing that was flat on the gain line, aggressive and constantly pushing his skill set.
That is a good trait in a young creative player.
Coombes added his fourth try deep in red time at the end of the second half that was duly missed converted by Billy Holland, his last act as a professional player.
Good vibes, some good tries, some excellent moments – exactly what the doctor ordered.
Even with the opposition failing to fire, I think Munster will be delighted with the quality of the work between Coombes, Casey, Carbery and the outside backs. Our front five won collisions and dominated the scrum, our flankers were mobile, aggressive and balanced in their role output, our #8 played like Thanos with a full infinity gauntlet and our halfbacks were dynamic and paired really well. That was probably the most interesting factor in this game for me.
Casey’s tempo and his width on the pass really synced in well with Carbery’s pace, elusiveness and calm precision on ball. Carbery has really progressed his game over the last number of months on his gradual return to full fitness and sharpness. I feel he’s not at his very sharpest just yet – it takes time after a layoff as long as his – but this game was the perfect example of how close he is to getting back to where he wants to be. The sharpness of his runs, the accuracy of his kicking game, the way Casey ran him into positions where he had space and time to work; that was all hugely encouraging on a day where Munster looked like they had levels and levels to go through.
That kind of win has value in a professional environment.
Notable Players
This was a really strong collective performance. Focusing too much on all the individuals would be reductive – that will be in Tuesday’s Five Star Podcast – but I wanted to focus on the relationship between the 8/9/10 in this game.
Craig Casey, Gavin Coombes and Joey Carbery just looked really smooth out there. Carbery was the very definition of not overplaying his cards. Carbery’s execution here – look at Coombes control and pass accuracy under pressure too – is just spot on.
He would have known that Zebre were going to over blitz on any line that Farrell was on and the kick was exactly what it needed to be to attack that space in behind. Casey’s aggressive line in support of the break was the kind of direct running that top scrumhalves are expected to have these days. All throughout the game, Casey just ran the ruck with the kind of precision and decision making that shows what a high calibre prospect he is.
Speaking of prospects, Gavin Coombes performance here was of the highest standard. Forget about the opposition, Coombes was sensational. He scored a bonus point on his own, bossed the gainline on both sides of the ball, jumped in the lineout, and just looked like the player he is now – a cornerstone of the Munster pack.
It wasn’t so long ago that we wondered who would or could ever replace CJ Stander. Gavin Coombes 2020/21 was so good, so high-level, that the question almost answered itself by December, even before CJ’s retirement was made known to the public. People will point to Zebre and go, aha, they’re bottom of the league but as I wrote earlier, Coombes has done this to Leinster, Toulouse, Clermont – big teams with big players. When he isn’t in the squad, it’s harder for us to play the way we want. When he’s starting at #8, we look dominant, powerful and intimidating because that’s what Gavin Coombes is on a rugby pitch. He is inevitable.
When you throw in assassins like Casey and Carbery around him, with Kleyn and Wycherley hammering guys in the tight, and you have a squad that threw 54 points on Zebre while playing well within what I feel they are capable of.
Next season is a few months away, there is quality coming into the squad, quality building in the young academy players promoted to the senior squad this season but the core of players we saw here at 8/9/10 is the future of this province.
★★★★★
The Wally Ratings: Zebre (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 |
|---|---|
| Dave Kilcoyne | ★★★★ |
| Niall Scannell | ★★★★ |
| John Ryan | ★★★★ |
| Jean Kleyn | ★★★★ |
| Fineen Wycherley | ★★★★ |
| Jack O'Donoghue | ★★★ |
| Peter O'Mahony | ★★★ |
| Gavin Coombes | ★★★★★ |
| Craig Casey | ★★★★★ |
| Joey Carbery | ★★★★★ |
| Liam Coombes | ★★★★ |
| Rory Scannell | ★★★★ |
| Chris Farrell | ★★★★ |
| Andrew Conway | ★★★★ |
| Matt Gallagher | ★★★★ |
| Kevin O'Byrne | ★★★ |
| Liam O'Connor | ★★ |
| Roman Salanoa | ★★★ |
| Thomas Ahern | ★★★ |
| Billy Holland | ★★★ |
| Nick McCarthy | ★★★ |
| Jake Flannery | ★★★ |
| Chris Cloete | ★★★ |
