Clayton McMillan: Discipline crucial for Munster

It mattered not to the 17,364 at Thomond Park on a sunny Saturday evening that Ulster had travelled without their entire first team for this crucial derby against play-off rivals as an element of jeopardy was removed from the contest soon after half-time. 

Yet up in the coaches’ box there were other considerations in play.

“I’d still like to see our discipline be a bit better,” McMillan said of his hopes for the final two rounds. “I think we gave away 12 penalties today, and we really need that to be in the single digits. Otherwise, you just gift opportunities to good teams, and they’ll make you pay for those. So that’s one area that we need to be better at.

“I think our scrum has come a long way, but we’re still guilty of giving a couple of soft ones away that, again, just release pressure or we put pressure on ourselves.

“And then just the decision-making. I think there’s lots of parts of our game that are slowly coming together. We’re starting to score tries and score some points, and that’s pleasing at this stage of the season. But you can undo all of the good work through just a few little things that end up being the big things.” 

With two rounds before the play-off places are set, Munster are in a much healthier position than seemed likely a fortnight earlier.

Back-to-back URC defeats in South Africa and an abject exit from the Challenge Cup Round of 16 at Exeter Chiefs seemed to place McMillan’s squad in something of a death spiral as off-field storm clouds gathered and his team appeared incapable of stringing two good performances together.

At least they have found a way to register two decent wins but McMillan still wants more from his side after a less-than-convincing first half against Ulster, which saw the underpowered northerners take an early 7-0 lead that might have been greater but for greater execution and discipline. 

Ulster were twice held up over the Munster tryline and conceded 12 points with academy flanker and debutant Tom Brigg in the sin bin as John Hodnett scored the first two of his four tries on the night to hand the home team a 12-7 lead.

The yellow card for Brigg’s deliberate knock-on was the moment Munster needed and after the break they really clicked into gear to back up their 45-15 win at Benetton in Italy seven days earlier with another seven-try salvo capped off by two more from Hodnett and a hat-trick from replacement back-rower Alex Kendellen.

Momentum is finally building. Munster have climbed into fifth place and widened the gap to the doomsday position of ninth in the URC table to seven points, and a top-four finish now appears more feasible than a spot outside the all-important top eight.

Mess up from here, at Connacht on May 9 and home to the Lions seven days later and Munster could face a premature end to this season without knockout rugby and no Champions Cup for 2026-27.

The Munster boss will not be taking anything for granted and he acknowledged the tricky tests still to get through.

“I think we won’t be patting ourselves on the back after tonight,” McMillan said. “We’re well aware that there’s still some huge challenges ahead of us. But we won’t be the only team in that boat. There’ll be a lot.

“I think outside the top maybe two or three, they probably can count themselves in, and everyone else is scrapping for whatever points they can get. So we just need to worry about ourselves.

“Obviously this week is an opportunity to take stock and then we have to prepare for an ever-improving Connacht side.”

A big element of that stock-take will revolve around the extent of the injuries sustained on a costly night in Limerick with the head coach admitting that among the injuries to six of his frontline players, there were a couple of “season-enders”, though that was not thought to include captain and lock Tadhg Beirne, who limped out with a leg injury in the second half, and fly-half Jack Crowley, withdrawn before kick-off with a dead leg.

South Africa lock Jean Kleyn (bicep), wing Calvin Nash (hamstring), centre Tom Farrell (shoulder), and tighthead prop Oli Jager (concussion) may be more of a concern.

McMillan said the injuries played their part in Munster’s slow and error-strewn start to the match.

“Look, some of the clunkiness of the performance I think can be attributed in part to a bit of disruption.

“Obviously Jack pulled out before the game, just not too sure, he’s kind of had like a dead leg that just wouldn’t go away, couldn’t generate any power from it, so we made a call literally in the last minute of the warm-up to pull him, but JJ (Hanrahan) was ready to go and he jumped in there.

“But there’s a few other dings, you know. Tadhg took a bit of a nasty fall there, and he’s done something to his leg. JK, John Kleyn, he’s done something to his bicep. Calvin Nash, hamstring, Tom Farrell, shoulder, so look, I’d say there’s probably two or three season-enders there.”

As for Jager, the tighthead who only returned from an almost three-month absence at Benetton seven days earlier, and who has taken time out to deal with a series of head injuries, McMillan said: “I feel for him in particular because he’s come back strong and to have another setback is pretty concerning, but yeah, I don’t want to jump to any conclusions yet around that.”

MUNSTER: S Daly; C Nash (D Kelly, 29), T Farrell (A Kendellen, 43), A Nankivell, A Smith; JJ Hanrahan, C Casey (B O’Donovan, 70); J Loughman (M Milne, 54), D Barron (L Barron, 49), O Jager (M Ala’alatoa, 45 - HIA); J Kleyn (E Edogbo, 4-14 – HIA & 16), T Beirne – captain; T Ahern, J Hodnett, G Coombes (B Gleeson, 60).

ULSTER: M Lowry – captain (J Humphreys, 61); A Arenzana-King, E McIlroy, B Carson (J Scott, 15), B Moxham; J Flannery, C McKee (D Shanahan, 54); E O’Sullivan (C Reid, 31), J McCormick (J Andrew, 57), B O’Connor (T McAllister, 39); H Sheridan, C Irvine; J McKillop (J Hopes, 54), T Brigg (Marcus Rea, 57), L McLoughlin.

Yellow card: T Brigg 23-33 mins.

Referee: Sam Grove-White (Scotland)