Heading in the right direction
Being offered the dawn shift at 12.45 on a Sunday certainly doesn’t help.
After successive road trips to Heineken Cup champions Leinster, RaboDirect champions Ospreys and Racing Metro in Paris yielded nothing in terms of a win, Munster returned to Limerick yesterday hoping to draw strength and inspiration from their spiritual home.
In those circumstances, to finish with a four-try bonus point, Munster are entitled to feel a warm glow after this 33-point win.
While Rob Penney has banned talk of transition in the squad, the fact that Munster finished this game with JJ Hanrahan on the field, along with a whole host of players serving their apprenticeship at this level, does offer hope for the future.
That said, the quality of the opposition has to be put into context before anyone starts getting carried away. For the second week in a row Edinburgh were simply awful. For a side noted for their attacking prowess, going 160 minutes of Heineken Cup rugby without registering a single point, just tells you where they are at present.
Munster were offered a boost before kick-off with confirmation that the visitors’ try-scoring machine Tim Visser was forced off due to injury along with their out-half kicking ace Greig Laidlaw.
You just wondered where their points might come from. In the end, we didn’t even get to find out who their replacement place-kicker was going to be as Edinburgh didn’t even exert enough pressure to warrant a single kick at goal.
Such was the emphasis put on Munster’s ball-in-hand game and the requirement to create space during pre-season and in the early rounds of the Rabo that there had been a marked deterioration in the variety and quality of Munster’s kicking game, culminating in some dreadful execution at the Stade de France.
At least the lessons from Paris were quickly absorbed as Munster adopted a more direct approach with the boot early on, Ian Keatley kicking in behind a brittle-looking Edinburgh back three to good effect.
Then, when the opportunity presented itself, Munster remained loyal to their ambitions to spread the ball wide and stretch the opposition in defence.
Much more physical in the breakdown and with Paul O’Connell a constant nuisance on the Edinburgh throw, Munster had sufficient possession in the opening half to win three games.
A precarious six-point lead at the break left them vulnerable and you wondered how the new generation would cope with the expectation levels in front of a loyal but demanding Thomond faithful.
The one area of pronounced dominance in that opening period was in their lineout maul and with time to discuss their options at half time, Munster made the sensible decision to maximise the return from that phase.
Turning down a very kickable penalty five minutes into the second half, Munster finally trusted their instincts when going to the corner, which eventually led to that crucial opening try from Conor Murray. The lessons were absorbed with two more tries resulting from similar decisions for the excellent Sean Dougal and Damien Varley at the death. You could sense the silent nod of approval from generations of Munster forwards from the distant and not too distant past.
Munster must now build on this result and recognise that under Penney they have the option to play in a number of different ways. That offers them a huge advantage. Once you become predictable it makes it so much easier for the opposition.
They still have a way to travel. The midfield combination of James Downey and Casey Laulala is very much a work in progress and there is still the matter of deciding just where the mercurial Keith Earls should be positioned for best reward. He had started the season extremely well prior to injury and his return, allied to the outstanding form of Simon Zebo and Denis Hurley, the return to action of Felix Jones and the emergence of Luke O’Dea and JJ Hanrahan, offers Penney some mouth-watering options behind the scrum down the line.
To extract maximum return from that talent requires a functioning set-piece and in that respect Munster upped the ante, especially out of touch. O’Connell was superb for a player with so little recent game time and once again Dave Kilcoyne dealt with the challenge of two more experienced internationals in Geoff Cross and WP Nel like a veteran. His ball-carrying has also added significantly to the Munster cause this season and he will only get better.
Saracens in December will be an entirely different challenge to what Munster faced yesterday but at least they now know that once they get their execution right they have the capacity to score points.
Leinster extended their record unbeaten run in the Heineken Cup to 17 games with an improved performance in Wales, but one still well below their champion best. Not since losing by seven points away to Clermont Auvergne back in December 2010 have Leo Cullen’s men tasted defeat in this tournament and they will now have to galvanise even more before returning to the scene of that defeat at the Stade Marcel Michelin in December.
The impressive thing about Leinster on Saturday was the manner with which they addressed their deficiencies against Exeter last time out.
Nowhere was this more pronounced than in the breakdown where they were far more physically imposing and more technically proficient. If their back row responded well to playing second fiddle to Exeter last time out, the centre combination of Gordon D’Arcy and Brian O’Driscoll rolled back the years with an outstanding display of pilfering at the breakdown, between them accounting for numerous turnovers.
Jonny Sexton won the battle of the auditioning Lions out-halves hands down over Rhys Priestland, despite some loose kicking in the second half, and displayed a keen awareness of everything going on around him.
The one serious concern for Joe Schmidt is the fact that Leinster, with a solitary try after two Heineken Cup outings, have still to rediscover their renowned attacking prowess with ball in hand. They have serious work to do on that front but the November international window will prove no friend in that quest.
