Ronan O'Gara exclusive: Munster-Racing 92 should be in Limerick, not Cork. Here's why...
FALLEN FRIEND: Friday is the tenth anniversary of the passing of the Munster legend Anthony Foley. Pic: Dan Sheridan, Inpho
Northampton. Bath. Leinster. Stormers. There are more than a few reasons a French Top 14 winner of the European Champions Cup is nowhere near as inevitable as some are making out this week.
Success in the protracted pool stage offers the seductive prospect of home games in the knockouts and that does appear the best chance for French sides (or anyone) to retain their attention span for a tournament that drifts from October’s one game into December and onto January. Streuth.
While we are on the topic of own goals, it’s also worth mentioning Munster’s own in bringing their opening game Saturday against Racing 92 to Cork.
This Friday, the eve of the match in Páirc Uí Chaoimh, is the 10th anniversary of Axel’s passing in 2016. The game should be in Thomond Park all day long. All night long too for that matter. Axel is Shannon, Limerick, Thomond Park, the embodiment of all three great institutions. If this sounds strange coming from a Cork man it’s because, in this instance, it’s coming from a Munster man.
You could bring any other game to Páirc Uí Chaoimh but don’t do it on the 10th anniversary of this great man’s tragic death. The Limerick people would fill Thomond Saturday night to its 26,000 capacity all on their own as a mark of resect to one of their folk heroes - and would stir up a great Munster rugby occasion in the process. This is a classic case of Munster Rugby not helping themselves.
I’m really surprised no-one has kicked up on this. With his father’s Brendan’s Munster history, Axel’s own Munster story, and a big European opening night on the weekend of the 10th anniversary of his passing – and the game is brought to Cork? I’m sorry, I just don’t get that.
I'd wonder was there an organisational conversation about it because, without missing a beat, this decision should have been blindingly obvious. Anthony Foley was pure Limerick, through and through, and while Munster have done right by bringing other games to Pairc Uí Chaoimh to grow audience, this was certainly not one of those occasions. The club’s proud heritage and the obvious opportunity to honour one of its fallen icons should have taken pre-eminence here. No brainer. You think Limerick folk will flood to Cork?
I am trying to think of a comparable situation if it was a Cork legend and the game was moved to Limerick, but I’m sure you can conjure your own.
Racing 92 are a puzzle. They leaked 64 points to Bordeaux and 48 to Lyon and have only won two of their six Top 14 games, but if the mood takes them, they can be a wrecking machine. We scouted them diligently before La Rochelle entertained them on September 19 and couldn’t have foreseen the 20-10 beating they handed us. In the previous two games they looked so much less engaged, less powerful and frankly less interested than they were in Marcel Deflandre.
But in their Fijian centres, Josua Tuisova and Vinaya Habosi, you are looking at a pair of Mack truck who, when they are in the mood, will destroy you. And if they rock up to the Páirc in the mood, trust me they will destroy Munster in the middle of the park. You can do little about it. It’s the equivalent of three industrial sized fridges launching at your midfield. It will be worth the admission price alone to see these lads. I read this week that Munster are going with some of the younger crew. Be careful on that one because on top of those two freight trains Racing have a 110kgs winger Wame Naituvi who’s got plenty of heft and north south intent too.
An old friend, Max Machenaud may be in the nine slot. They lost Léo Carbonneau to an ACL at the start of the season and Machenaud, who came back from Bayonne to his old club has been handed the reins. Antoine Gibert or Ugo Seunesw will likely be at 10 with the talented Max Spring at full back.
With an opening game ‘at home’ Munster need to win. As ever, French teams at home are very powerful and won’t offer up a lot of points to visitors. The difference these days with the growing power of Europe’s top league is the depth of Top 14 squads which allows them to target wins on the road too. There will be French sides who continue to send a shadow squad to away days, depending on how it collides with their domestic fixtures, but the days of Top 14 sides rolling over for a tummy-tickle on the road are far fewer.
I think La Rochelle’s double winning exploits in the Champions Cup invigorated a lot of sides here (though not Toulouse obviously, whose European pedigree was already well established). But it whetted appetites around Bordeaux, for example, who enter this year’s competition on a potential hat-trick of wins, which is hugely stimulating for their group. Lucu, Jalibert and Bielle-Biarrey are podium stars but they have some really interesting propositions in the pack too.
It might be plainly obvious, but no less relevant for that, to point to the financial power and depth of talent available to the Top 14 clubs, but less well advertised is the brutality of the league which corresponds to a high rate of attrition and dependence on those afore-mentioned large squads. The players occupying jerseys 25-40 are quite a bit better than those with URC or English Prem clubs. When you watch the French league at pitch level, fellas are literally pelting themselves at each other for 80 minutes.
You saw Montpellier’s excitement at winning the Challenge Cup final last year against Ulster. It wasn’t so long since it was considered a poor man’s prize, even for English and Irish clubs, but European dominance in the first instance, and hemisphere pre-eminence with it is something clubs in France like the sound and feel of. Everyone was watching the scenes when La Rochelle returned home with the European Cup after our victory in Marseille against Leinster. Ditto the following year in Dublin. Everyone else was thinking ‘why can’t that be us?’
The South African sides have made their mark in the URC but if they have not yet stamped their physical prowess on the European Cup it has less to do with quality and more time – there is a bedding in period to synchronise their rhythms to the stop-start nature of this competition. Interestingly, the well-spread out group games this year may well suit the South Africans as much as the French. The strong getting stronger. There are a lot of powerhouses from England, Ireland and France and it’s a big ask to swap hemispheres and sack those sides. The top two sides in each of the four pools will get home advantage in the round of 16, which will be a massive incentive for the South Africans, including the Lions who visit La Rochelle Saturday in Round 1.
There’s another consideration, which we referenced here in an Ireland context a week ago. The power of Rassie Erasmus and the all-in nature of 'Club South Africa' could be a consideration too as the one year countdown to the RWC 2027 begins. The coaches won’t admit it, but there is certainly an element of that; those players can’t be on all year round but by God are they on for South African whether it’s test match or training weeks. There’s very little between South Africa’s top 30 players, which means the competition to play is ridiculous. They’ve got the return of two World Cups and everything now about a possible and unprecedented hat trick in Australia. Ask any Springbok privately and they’ll confirm it’s very tough serving two masters. You need to pick and choose your weeks. Toulouse can do it, but very few others do.
Clermont host Leinster, Montpellier go to Bath and the defending champions Bordeaux Begles kick off the weekend Friday night at Kingsholm.
On Sunday Toulouse host Exeter. We all keep a half-eye on the European masters and their devastating petite general. Antoine Dupont’s form has been average enough, and he seems to be reserving his game-changing moments for little 10-second bursts, like against Bayonne last weekend. Cruising, cruising, changes speed, power, try from 40m. Then sidestep, acceleration, power, bang. Two tries. That man retains an unbelievable capacity to just change a game with freakish individual brilliance.
