Mallett to hammer home Tigers win as turning point
“I am just relieved and delighted that we got through. It took a lot of hard work and a lot of guts to top our pool,” he said yesterday after the French side were paired with Alan Gaffney’s Munster in the last eight.
“Before the game with Leicester I hadn’t even contemplated facing into a quarter-final. Being realistic, we probably thought we wouldn’t get there.”
Ex-Springbok coach Mallett is determined to keep his club in the low profile zone for the moment and observed: “If Leicester had taken their goal kicking chances, they would probably have beaten us.
“We’re delighted at qualifying but that’s the reality of the situation.
Leicester kicked one out of six and paid the price for that.”
He added: “While there has been no first hand experience of Munster in my time as coach, you’ve only got to look at their record to know it will be a huge task for us.”
“I think that is self-evident. Munster’s record in Limerick is phenomenal and they beat Stade Francais there in 2000, pretty convincingly too.
“The last couple of games between the teams have been less emphatic one way or the other, but Munster proved they can play well on the road as well when winning the quarter-final two years ago.”
The win in Leicester last weekend was, hopes Mallett, a turning point for Stade Francais. “The team hasn’t done so well in the French Championship and a lot of players came home very tired from the World Cup.
“It has been a difficult time and that’s why it feels so good to have got to the last eight. It didn’t do us any harm to have to struggle in our recent match against Ulster. I think the way Ulster played that day is an indication of how tough it’s going to be in Limerick.”
Though he hasn’t had a chance to carry an out an in-depth analysis of Munster, he expects to have plenty of video footage to wade through. “Munster are one of the highest profile sides in Europe over the last four seasons. While the team has evolved and the style of play has been adjusted under a new coach and captain, it remains a relatively settled unit.
“They have been involved in so many big Heineken Cup occasions that it shouldn’t be difficult to see plenty of them on tape.”
Mallett believes he will pore over quite a few videos before he spots a chink in the Munster armour.
“They’ve had the odd bad day but they have come through many huge struggles. Any worry that the bubble might have burst was dispelled by their ability to come through a really tough pool.
“They have a huge, very mobile pack, brilliant half-backs and very good strike runners. I will find it very difficult to highlight weaknesses that we might exploit.”
But, after accepting an away tie, Mallett is not complaining. “We knew the best we could achieve was to get to the last eight and that a home fixture was out of the question.
“It could have been anyone and they would all have been equally tough, Toulouse, Wasps, Llanelli or Munster.
“It has been a brilliant tournament to date and it’s exciting to note that the quarter-finals throw up home advantage to one club from each of four countries.
“It just shows that the competition is vibrant and very, very competitive. From our perspective, we’ll take what we got and look forward to April. It would have been much worse had we lost to Leicester.”
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