Sunday could be Munster rugby's finest hour
You’d anticipate a massive reaction from the Munster players on Sunday. They are hurting and with key leaders at the spine of the team, the required improvement in performance will be forthcoming. Most of the players playing last Saturday wouldn’t have shown their faces in public last Sunday or Monday.
It was similar when Ulster and Ruan Pienaar did a number on us in the 2012 Heineken Cup quarter-final. That is the depth of inner turmoil associated with losing at home in Europe — myself and two of my young lads will make the 440-kilometre journey to Clermont on Sunday to witness just how these wounded warriors will respond.
The reaction of the Clermont players last Saturday was very revealing when referee Wayne Barnes called time. Several sank to their knees, some punched the air, others skipped and jumped with a teenage giddiness.
It was the reaction of a team who hadn’t previously known how to win big games. Now that they have achieved this, the big question is whether this is a starting point for them or was that them reaching their peak?
Camille Lopez has now become their key player with the changing of the guard at fly-half and as a result, the Clermont pack have extra incentive to keep digging in for each other. I think the forwards were crying out for a change in their own DNA — they were looking for a different conductor at number 10.
For me, Brock James didn’t have the comebacks from failures to give him enough on the credit side of the ledger. We all make mistakes but forwards will back you all day and work their socks off for you if you do eventually produce, otherwise they won’t go that extra mile in the little “games within games” that go on.
Michael Jordan said the failing over and over again is what made him succeed, and it’s a tribute to Lopez that, having missed his first three kicks, his first penalty was a great one from a kicker’s point of view, and his drop goal was brilliant — you just know by his strut that he has it in him.
Rarely has a travelling team prepared so well and blunted the home team’s performance as the Jaunards did in Limerick. Clermont treated the away fixture like a European knockout game and won all the individual battles to take control of the group with three games to play.
They and Toulon are the best two teams in France and in Europe — Toulon have the trophies to show for it while Clermont are incredibly consistent but haven’t sealed the deal in the past, and they will see raiding Thomond Park as the first step towards doing that.
Clermont’s forwards coach, Jono Gibbes, is a proud man and he took personal satisfaction from it. He knows how to upset Munster, he’s done it plenty of times with Leinster and now he’s done it with Clermont too.
He was very forthcoming in his interviews afterwards — Clermont targeted Munster’s big players, and got a result there. Coaches don’t always do that so it’s a message to all in rugby about the returns that can be got from analysing opposition properly.
Line speed and tackle technique won them the first leg. They lived on the offside line but the key with this is that if everyone has line speed together, you never get pinged — if you’ve lazy defenders, they’ll be highlighted.
Essentially, if everyone cheats, you get away with it, if one person cheats, you don’t. At this level, everything is on the edge, everything is borderline.
Clermont’s follow-up performance will be fascinating. From a mental point of view I think they will find it difficult to reach the same pitch as they did for “Invasion Thomond”. The fear factor they brought to Limerick, with Gibbes saying they feared they could get ‘embarrassed’, won’t be there this time around.
However, their phase game will be better simply because they are playing at home and as a result will be more confident and composed on the ball.
For everything that’s been said about Munster’s performance, it’s not like they lost 41-13. It was 16-9, a one-score game. Munster didn’t get their game going so that needs to come out this time, but a losing bonus point isn’t to be sniffed at here either — at this point in time, going to Saracens is easier than going to Clermont.
Anthony Foley will be gunning for victory though, and the biggest challenge in this regard lies in the fact that when Munster eked out big wins on the road in the past, they did so with squads brimming with international players.
On Saturday, a centre combination that has had no game-time together went up against the likes of Aurelien Rougerie, who is still a player of the highest standard at this level.
Munster just don’t have the quality of midfield player like Rougerie, Wesley Fofana, Jonathan Davies or Benson Stanley — but they do possess an extremely fit and motivated group of players.
Munster can benefit if they attempt to keep the pace of the game up from the start and back their fitness in the last 15 minutes.
The biggest challenge for us French teams is trying to cope with the intensity at which the English and Irish sides play the game.
The Top 14 is a league of combat, fight, arm wrestling and field position, but the Champions Cup poses many different questions.
I have the privilege of knowing the ingredients which combine to make a potent Munster formula on the road — discipline in tandem with manic aggression, taking three-point opportunities and defending like men possessed, even when the yellow and blue waves are continuously bombarding you and you get up from the ground and feel like you’re playing against 20 “Jaunards”.
Combine that with one of the best crowds in Europe at Stade Marcel Michelin — and you get a taste of why it could be Munster’s finest hour.
