Time for Kidney’s men to step up pace or season will be over

DECLAN KIDNEY and his Munster players have spent the last couple of days licking their wounds - most of them metaphorical, apart from Ronan O’Gara’s eye - after Saturday’s loss to Leinster at the RDS.

Losing to a team of such quality is no shame in itself, but the manner in which it was inflicted has to be a source of concern to Munster. Skipper Anthony Foley readily admitted afterwards that their season could be as good as over in the next three weeks unless they step up quite a few gears. On Saturday they meet the Edinburgh Gunners, their nearest rivals in the league, at Murrayfield, and then come the all-important Heineken European Cup matches away to Castres and at home to Sale Sharks.

Kidney isn’t panicking, however: “In a 22-game league, we’ve played Leinster back-to-back and we’ve each come away with five points. Obviously, we have to make sure it doesn’t hit our confidence too much, take a look at it, see what was under our control, see what Leinster did well that we could learn from, where we made errors and how we correct them.”

The coach hinted that he may make changes for the visit to Murrayfield: “Because of their schedules, we must give the players some bit of a break over the next few days.”

However, Kidney must surely be wondering how best to cure the ills currently afflicting his team - the unforced errors which blighted the two Heineken Cup performances against the Gwent Dragons and some appalling defensive lapses - while it’s difficult to see where the pace and penetration so essential for success will come from. Right now, who could blame the forwards if they gave up on taking line-out ball off the top and presenting it to the backs in preference for stuffing it up their jersey and taking on the onus themselves?

Even that strategy hardly worked against Leinster. The line-out is an area where Munster have invariably prospered but full marks to Malcolm O’Kelly and company - Leinster kept them well under control and when it came to rolling mauls, the sides finished with one try apiece.

“Getting the primary possession worked very well but it’s the use of that possession we must now work on,” Kidney agreed. “We battered away at them on their line but they ended up getting a breakdown quite handy and that was one of the holes we dug for ourselves.”

Everybody would like to see as many home-bred players as possible in the Munster side and it was interesting to note that Jeremy Staunton and Eoin Reddan, two who have been deemed superfluous to requirements, formed the half-back partnership for Wasps as they walloped London Irish in the Guinness Premiership at the Madjeski Stadium last weekend. Barry Murphy completed the full 80 minutes and did a lot of things well against Leinster. Unfortunately, he may be best remembered for the dropped pass that led to Leinster’s late try and bonus point, but Kidney would have none of that: “It was a big day for Barry and he’ll only get better for it. If you look at a replay of the match, some of our best attacking play came through him, so that’s something you don’t want to leave on the sideline if you can avoid it.”

Peter Stringer was one of the few Munster players to keep his reputation intact against Leinster and he put his finger on Munster’s problems: “We have to be more clinical when we get into attacking positions, we must be more patient and come away with points. I thought we deserved a few more points in the first half whereas we conceded a try the first time they got into our half and that was a big blow. We felt we had it there for the taking at times but weren’t clinical enough.”

Like everybody in the Munster camp, Stringer readily accepted how well Leinster had played and that they would have had a few more scores had they not dropped the ball out wide.

Asked if he had been frustrated by Alistair McKay’s refereeing, the scrum-half pondered for a second or two before responding, possibly with tongue in cheek: “To be honest, I find most referees quite frustrating. We had a few mauls and scrums close to their line and their defending was quite cynical at times.

“We’ve got to cope with that and play the referee like they did and look to ourselves first and foremost. We’ll take what we can out of this game. The Interpros are the toughest games we play and there’s no better preparation going into the Heineken Cup than a game against Leinster.”

Skipper Anthony Foley is confident that better things may be around the corner as he suggested: “We’re going to give some side a hiding because we are creating a lot at the moment but haven’t been converting.”

Perhaps - but if they don’t do so and do so quickly, it won’t matter before very long more.