Foley: We never got our act together
“We weren’t good enough,” he said of a result that trims Munster’s lead at the head of the Celtic League to three points with a difficult assignment looming against second placed Ulster at Ravenhill on Friday week.
Foley’s criticism extended to his own performance even though he had given his side the perfect start with a try after just three minutes. But Munster made an embarrassing amount of unforced errors and the Warriors fully deserved to become that rugby rarity - a team that beat Munster both home and away in the same tournament in the same year. Munster last lost at Thomond Park to the Newport Gwent Dragons just under two years ago.
“There was a period immediately after we scored our first try which was something similar to the Newport game in that we conceded straight away,” said Foley, referring to one of those dodgy early season Heineken Cup performances.
“We fought hard to get in front by half time although it could be argued whether we deserved that. They got a soft score. After that, we put all hands to the pump and really went at them. We could have stolen it at the end but in fairness, it would have been a steal.”
The number of dropped passes and wrong options was desperately disappointing and Foley was spot on when refusing to use the absence of half the first 15 as an excuse. The possession coming from the pack was painfully slow and as a result Glasgow invariably had their defence organised once the ball emerged.
John Kelly on the right wing had a fine match on his return from injury, Shaun Payne hardly put a foot wrong at full-back and Barry Murphy showed one notable touch of class that led to the best of Munster’s three tries. Mick O’Driscoll looked a class act whether claiming clean line-out balls or leading foray after foray into enemy territory.
Nevertheless, the Warriors defence coped comfortably with most of what Munster threw at them and had a gem of their own in Colin Gregor, a Welsh-style number 10 who contributed 21 of their 26 points and paved the way for the other five.
How he wasn’t voted man of the match (the accolade instead went to John Kelly) was a mystery but the visitors weren’t worrying about that after achieving such a result. It was all the more meritorious given that they had to endure the crucial final 10 minutes without the sin-binned Mark Roberts.
“We made so many errors,” said Foley. “We kept dropping passes. I passed the ball to nobody twice. It’s something we’ll have to work on. I know there are plenty of excuses there, that we’re not together and all that, but there’s a league still there to be won and every team is in the same boat as ourselves.
“We’re all big enough and ugly enough to know that we have to make tackles and pass the ball to somebody. You’ve got to know when to shut down the game and know when to put a fella in for a score when the gaps are there. I’m taking nothing away from Glasgow, they played lovely rugby at times but you’d wonder about us. We don’t drop off tackles like that, people don’t offload like that against us.”
Munster could still have nicked it at the death had a perfectly timed tackle not dashed the ball from Tomas O’Leary’s hands when it seemed certain he would put Kelly over.
Foley dismissed that as insignificant because of the overall poor standard.
“We always say games like those against Sale and Castres are easy because we don’t need any motivation”, he pointed out. “You come in and the place is a cauldron. Today, Man U and Liverpool were playing and there wasn’t a sinner here when we were warming up - it had the feeling of a pre-season friendly.
“We were trying to build an atmosphere but then mentally we switched off. These are disappointing times for me personally. I felt I played like a drain. It’s just not on.”
: S. Payne; J. Kelly, B. Murphy, T. Halstead, A. Horgan; M. Lawler, T. O’Leary; F. Roche, D. Fogarty, F. Puciarello, D. O’Callaghan, M. O’Driscoll, S. Keogh, J. O’Connor, A. Foley capt.
: J. O’Sullivan for O’Connor (50 mins); G. Connolly for Halstead (80).
: R. Lamont; H. O’Hare, S. Davey, G. Morrison, M. Roberts; C. Gregor, S. Pinder; K. Tkachuk, F. Thomson, E. Murray, D. Turner, C. Hamilton, S. Swindall, J. Petrie capt, G. Haytor.
: S. Lawson for Thomson (half time); S. Corsar for Haytor (60); G. Staniforth for Morrison (65); L. Harrison for Murray (70).
: N. Owens (Wales).
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