O’Mahony issue poorly handled by Munster
Trailing by six points after a heroic second half performance against the unbeaten Aviva Premiership leaders, what a shot across the bow of the over-inflated English teams that would have been.
Had the men from the west managed to down the colours of the Nigel Wray-financed club, it would have caused more than a little embarrassment to the PRL faction in the current European impasse. The fact that the Scarlets, another Rabo side, managed to clip the wings of Harlequins at The Stoop offered some measure of consolation.
Overall it proved a good weekend for the basement sides in the Rabo Direct, none more so that Alan Solomons’ Edinburgh. Having missed the live showing of that opening Pool 6 game in Murrayfield, I enquired on my arrival in the press room at the Liberty Stadium how that game had gone only to be greeted with a stony silence. Everyone appeared in a state of shock that Munster had been turned over.
Once I had the opportunity to sit down and review that contest, I was even more alarmed than the initial bulletins indicated. All the good work and positive vibes emanating from Munster’s win over Leinster evaporated in an instant. It was yet another case of two steps backwards after making so much ground.
How and why did this happen? The one thing that hasn’t changed with the advent of professionalism is having your head in the right place. Regardless of the quality of opposition, it is very difficult to effect a recovery in the heat of battle if you’re not psychologically ready. After the game Rob Penney alluded to poor mental preparation. Was too much emotional energy expended in beating Leinster the previous week? How could the players be that flat entering one of the most important games of the season? Everyone knows the value of opening your Heineken Cup campaign with a win, especially away from home.
The situation surrounding the availability of Peter O’Mahony was an unwelcome distraction during the week and in my opinion could have been handled better.
Firstly, he was either concussed or he was not. Given he passed all the protocols in relation to that issue, and the Munster management confirmed later in the week that he was not concussed and therefore available for selection, why then wasn’t he picked? The implication was that there are a lot of big games coming thick and fast down the track and therefore it was prudent to rest him. Fair enough, but that call could well have been a contributory factor to the complacency Munster appeared to take with them on the field. Munster would have been better off declaring early in the week that O’Mahony was unavailable due to injury and set about getting their house in order.
The one thing that is absolutely clear is that Leinster took far more from defeat at Thomond Park than Munster did in victory. That is a worry and already Munster face a critical moment in their season even before a number of their squad has reached full match sharpness. That exerts an unwelcome pressure on a group of players that is still evolving but clearly has a way to go.
At least they have a bit of previous here; it’s no different to what they experienced in those must-win games last season against Edinburgh in round two after that opening day defeat to Racing Metro and in the bonus point victory they had to secure against the Parisiens in their final pool outing in order to make the knockout phase at the expense of Leinster.
So where did it all go wrong last Saturday? The tone was set from an early stage when Edinburgh took Munster on physically in the contact area and Munster failed to respond in kind. Time and again red jerseys were been propelled backwards, with and without the ball, without response or reaction. The hunter became the hunted.
Coming into this game there would have been a fear factor within the Edinburgh players, given their abject form to that point in the season, that if they didn’t front up they could be blown away. Their forwards were aware of Munster’s reputation at the breakdown and would have studied first hand how they had succeeded in dominating a quality Leinster back row in that sector the previous weekend. They were expecting a massive physical confrontation but none was forthcoming. After a while their forwards began to wonder what all the fuss about and went for broke.
It didn’t help that Munster’s lineout fell apart, losing four of their 12 throws in the process, and as a consequence were unable to build any momentum. To be fair, they committed more bodies to the breakdown in the second half and fared much better but were then undone by a sequence of bad handling and the concession of some incredibly stupid penalties.
In addition Munster compounded bad situations by passing to players in a worse position, offering easy targets for Edinburgh to smash. They couldn’t believe their luck and with every big hit their confidence grew a little bit more. It was a reversal of what Munster did to Harlequins in last season’s quarter-final.
It should also be noted that the hosts played their best rugby since beating Toulouse in the quarter final back in April 2012 but their performance was aided by Munster’s inability to apply any sustained periods of pressure on a team whose confidence must have been at an all-time low.
The balance in the back row didn’t appear quite right either and at no time did Munster ever manage to commit sufficient Edinburgh defenders to create space or mismatches. It says everything about the lack of physical pressure put on Edinburgh that they only had to resort to using three of their eight substitutes on the day. That is unheard of in the modern game when fresh legs in the final quarter have become a prerequisite to closing out the match. Munster, on the other hand, had to call on every available body.
Gloucester on Saturday will provide a different type of challenge with a number of quality broken field runners in their backline. The only way to stifle that is to smash them up front. It’s already a case of back to basics.
