What makes results like this all the more special is the context.
Munster had to get something out of the game, Toulon had to show up in front of their home fans after a narrow loss in the previous home game right at the death, and both sides were right in the mix to qualify for the next round.
Whoever came out of this game with the W was almost certain to make the knockouts. The other was in danger of dropping into the Challenge Cup (the ultimate Love The One You’re With tournament) or, worse again, dropping out of Europe altogether.
A special brand of hopium amongst non-French fans in Europe pops up when you play a French side in France mid-way through the pools. It is, essentially, a delusion that nebulous future TOP14 demands will ensure the French club you’re playing sends out the espoirs along with the chef, the physio who stayed in good nick and the bus driver or a side so disinterested that they might as well be scrolling Instagram during breaks in play.
It never happens. French clubs do that away from home in Europe all the time. Stade Francais did it this weekend. Bayonne did it back in December (more’s the pity) and Montpellier sent over a side so callow to the RDS a few years ago that half of them nearly needed their parent’s permission to go to the game in the first place.
At home, the French teams always go strong.
I was experimenting with this particular brand of hopium last week in a moment of weakness when I was looking at Toulon’s schedule and thinking hmmm, maybe but, realistically, when they lost to Exeter on the opening weekend, they were always going to try and get a win back in this one. Plus, it’s Munster, and that name alone makes French clubs (and their fans, more importantly) pitch up with a little more intensity.
So this was not going to be easy. There was going to be no handy slapping of Toulon Z to get us back on track after a rougher December than the Wet Bandits. This was going to be a full bore, do-or-die progression decider in the south of France and Toulon selected a team full of size, power and go forward to do just that – progress.
Munster were able to bring back guys like O’Mahony, Carbery and Scannell from the long-term injured list but were without key players like Jager, Kleyn and Snyman; three heavyweights we’d likely need against the size and power that Toulon were sure to bring.
So, backs to the wall, Europe on the line and going to a place where Toulon rarely lose and certainly not by the bonus point winning margin that we’d need to have a right crack off Northampton next week for a possible, unlikely home draw in the Round of 16.
Impossible, surely?
Not for the Kings of the Hard Way.
***
I saw a lot of people talking about this game being a “turning point” for Munster’s season but I genuinely don’t think it’s right to call it that.
Last season, the game against South Africa in Páirc Uí Chaoimh genuinely was a turning point because, to that point, we’d struggled to put anything close to what we were capable of out on the pitch week to week.
In this bad run from early December to the first week of January, we had quarters of games where we showed what we’re capable of, only to be let down by attritional weather conditions and/or a complete lack of bench impact against elite opposition who had bench impact.
We’re still not back to full strength – and won’t get to that until Snyman returns in February/March and the likes of Barron/Salanoa/Haley make their way back – but what you saw in this game was the closest Munster have come to a functioning system in seven weeks or more.
And, as a result, our performance levels raised and stayed at that level for pretty much the full 80. The biggest issue Munster has had in the last four games has been knowing when to play our game and when to endure the after-effects of an exhausting sequence of play relative to the freshness of the opposition. If you’re on the €10 tier, you’ll have seen my Work Rate article last week where I went into detail on Munster’s offensive breakdown work and how you can see Munster’s exertion in attack ebb and flow across 10-minute blocks.
One thing that stood out was our “fast starts” where we chew through a tonne of phases and ruck involvements in the first few minutes always lead to a dip in activity in the sequences afterwards until we can recover. In essence, by starting fast without the ability to make a mass replacement in the front five around 55/60 minutes, I think we stretched ourselves too thinly across the full 80 minutes, which has led to late collapses.
In the last four games against Bayonne, Exeter, Leinster and Connacht we were winning or within three points right up until the opposition made a raft of changes between the 44th and 60th minute. Munster lost the last quarter in all of these games on the scoreboard and I think this is mostly because we haven’t been able to make a full forward bench transition since early November due to injuries.
If anything, I think our relatively slow start in this game helped us to see out the 80 minutes as comfortably as we did in the end.
That flat start contributed to a 10-0 deficit on the scoreboard that, at the time, didn’t seem overly ominous. We had none of the typical signs of a team getting pumped in France at that point. When super heavyweight TOP14 sides get on top of you, you’ll mostly see it in the scrum and maul.
This scrum 11 minutes in right outside our 22 was the exact place that, if it was going to be a long day in the office, it would show here. We held out really, really well against a massive Toulon shove. Our front row prevented Toulon from getting that diagonal shear against the head from their tighthead side that would see their loosehead, Danny Priso, almost dragging our tighthead John Ryan around.
John Ryan stays straight and goes through the shear with Scannell to make sure we don’t implode backwards. Loughman did a great job on Brookes here and, later, Beka Gigashvili but Scannell is my MVP in this particular scrum. He stays down, locked in place with his bind and keeps us moving forward. If he pops up here, it’s a penalty to Toulon and it wouldn’t be three points that would kill us, it’d be the perception that we can’t live with their scrum.
Another thing that can’t be denied is how much better (and more often) we kicked the ball. In previous games, we’ve played massive on-ball sequences that seemed to wear us out for little reward. We still played those on-ball sequences here but we mixed that up with a lot of kicking.
We kicked at a ratio of one kick for every 4.4 passes and that’s only at the level it is because we were able to hit the 1.44 pass-per-carry rate that we managed at our peak last season.
Even when we went 10-0 down, I could see we were hurting them with the ball in hand, especially as we were forcing turnovers in the tackle and on the ground when we kicked to them. Our transition defence on the higher volume of kicks gave us the shot, our much-improved lineout gave us the platform to play and our attacking structure executed really well did the rest.
In truth, we left another two or three tries out there.
But this game isn’t the be-all and end-all. It’s a win in the south of France against a big club, literally and metaphorically, and they are never, ever to be taken for granted. The confidence this will give the group after a bruising December can’t really be quantified. One thing that can be quantified is the intensity that this result has brought to this coming weekend against Northampton in Thomond Park.
A big win with a favourable points differential could sneak us a home round of 16 game if we win with a bonus point and Exeter lose with nothing in Bayonne. Even without Bayonne doing us a favour, a big win keeps us away from away games in Toulouse, Dublin and Bordeaux until later in the season and gives us a shot at Bath, Northampton or even Exeter again.
It’s all to play for and we have a puncher’s chance at something special.
That’s all a Bad Guy could ever want.
| Name | Rating |
|---|---|
| Jeremy Loughman | ★★★★ |
| Niall Scannell | ★★★★★ |
| John Ryan | ★★★★ |
| Tom Ahern | ★★★★ |
| Tadhg Beirne | ★★★★ |
| Peter O'Mahony | ★★★★ |
| John Hodnett | ★★★★★ |
| Gavin Coombes | ★★★★★ |
| Craig Casey | ★★★★★ |
| Jack Crowley | ★★★★★ |
| Shane Daly | ★★★★ |
| Alex Nankivell | ★★★★★ |
| Antoine Frisch | ★★★★ |
| Calvin Nash | ★★★★ |
| Simon Zebo | ★★★★ |
| Eoghan Clarke | N/A |
| Josh Wycherley | N/A |
| Stephen Archer | ★★★ |
| Brian Gleeson | N/A |
| Alex Kendellen | ★★★ |
| Conor Murray | ★★★ |
| Joey Carbery | ★★★ |
| Sean O'Brien | ★★★ |
