Lineout improvement a must

GIVEN that Gloucester were without their first-choice hooker and had a European rookie in his place, Munster must have entertained high hopes of reaping a lineout bonanza at Kingsholm.

The opposite was, in fact, the case. The area proved a rich harvest for the home side, an absolute disaster for the visitors.

Everybody will have their own idea of who and what was to blame. Was it Frankie Sheahan’s throwing? Was it poor pack leadership by Jim Williams? Was it the failure of Paul O’Connell and Donnacha O’Callaghan to cope with a changing situation? Or was it simply that on the day they were outsmarted by a Gloucester machine that had done its homework and knew exactly what was required?

The answer, to one extent or another, lies within all of these points. And to their credit, none of the Munstermen directly involved was trying to shirk the responsibility. The writing was on the wall from the time that two of Sheahan’s earliest throws sailed over the back of the lineout and were gobbled up by Junior Paramore, thus opening up all sorts of attacking options for Gloucester.

“The first one was my fault,” Williams insisted. Apparently, it was impossible to hear the lineout calls on the “Shed” side of the ground and accordingly, all too often Munster didn’t know where the ball was going! Coach Alan Gaffney admitted: “Frankie appeared to be taking a long time to get the ball in. The noise levels were huge and we certainly coughed up too many lineouts.”

Sheahan himself spoke of a “communication problem.”

“There were times when people were not sure what was going on in front of the Shed. There were a few missed calls and obviously we have work to do in this area. Give them credit, they obviously had their homework done on us. They had analysed our videos and we’ll have to go back to the drawing board for Thomond Park. There’s no way we’re going to point fingers at each other. It’s a shared responsibility.”

Although he had another mighty match around the park, Paul O’Connell discovered just how tough life can be at the coalface in Gloucester’s backyard. Typical of the central figures as a whole, he wasn’t for making excuses. “We didn’t perform and they did and yet we still had our chances to snatch something from the game, a bonus point or even a draw,” said O’Connell. “That, or even a win, was on the cards when we got the try. But I made a mistake at a lineout on our line and it cost us. I called the wrong call and confused all the lads. The ball went over the top and we lost it and gave away a penalty. It’s very hard to hear the calls on the Shed side.

“Teams analyse you so much in this day and age. It’s very hard to get 100% from your own lineout. Unfortunately, we made a few mistakes and that was mainly down to me and not Frankie’s throwing. I was calling bad lineouts. I have to take the rap for that this week and hopefully next week we’ll have it sorted. A few bad calls and you’re on the back foot.”

There was a general acceptance that Munster didn’t deserve to take anything after this bitterly disappointing performance. There have been other days like this and they’ve managed to come back. To a man, they believe they can do so again but this confidence is also mingled with a realisation that nothing less than 100% improvement will suffice next Saturday.

“You can look for all the excuses you like and it definitely helps when you have matches week-in, week-out, like the English sides, but that’s always been the way and it always will be the way, so we’re not going to blame it,” said Sheahan. “Gloucester spread the ball wide and had some great runners and took advantage of our mistakes. But we defended superbly and at the end it was one-try apiece.

“The pace of the opening twenty minutes was phenomenal and we weathered the storm excellently. They kept coming back more and more and then after half-time, they got that try and a few decisions went against us. Had he not cancelled a penalty in front of the posts, it would have been 13-9 and it would have made a bit of a difference. It was those penalty decisions before the end that cost us the bonus point.

To have any chance next Saturday, Munster must do something about the lineout situation and they are promising to work very hard on it during the week. We can expect a lot of innovations with Sheahan also hoping that the referee will be a little more sympathetic to the thrower.

“He (Nigel Williams) wasn’t giving us a chance to get our calls right and once that happened, the crowd joined in and the pressure built,” he explained. “In Thomond Park, the home team get the benefit of the doubt and you can almost take as long as you want. When you’re travelling, the referee is inclined to go with the home side if it’s a bit delayed and he’s urging you to throw it in and so on. If no call is given and there’s nobody going up, you’re going to lose it.”