Kidney takes heart by stressing the positives

CONTENT in victory, despite a messy, error-strewn performance, Munster coach Declan Kidney was quick to remind everyone afterwards that it was the first time Munster had won all three away pool matches in the Heineken Cup. It was not an insignificant observation.

Bourgoin’s impressive victory against Biarritz in the French championship last week had forewarned Munster. Kidney didn’t deny the drama had unsettled him, but he wasn’t prepared to countenance criticism of his side. “We pushed out the game; we made mistakes, but we made mistakes trying things.

“The guys know where the mistakes were made, they know what they have to do to improve things, but unless you give players latitude to try things then you’re never going to improve as a side.”

The coach conceded that he would have been far happier to see Munster play for position after winning possession in the second half, but admitted: “I don’t play the game — that’s up to the players and they’ve got to do it as they see it at the time. I suppose there were some difficult circumstances because it was a tight pitch; there wasn’t a whole lot of room on either of the touchlines.”

Kidney hailed Lifiemi Mafi’s game-breaking try towards the end. He said: “It went through a lot of hands before we got the score, so that was particularly pleasing.” Marcus Horan’s earlier try was also top-drawer, he said.

He admitted that Trevor Halstead faced a huge hurdle to make it back in time for the Leicester game: “It doesn’t look good for him at the moment. What we have to do now is to make sure that other players don’t face injury problems.”

In his belief that Munster are capable of beating the Tigers (despite their current rude state of health) his faith was endorsed by both Bourgoin second row Bryce Williams and scrum half Mike Prendergast.

Williams admitted: “Munster made some mistakes, but they managed to step up a gear when they needed to.”

The injured Prendergast, a former Munster number nine, is certain his erstwhile colleagues will top the group.

“What they got today was a Bourgoin team playing at the top of their form; it has been a difficult couple of weeks for the club behind the scenes but they fronted up well. It really is the best thing that Munster could have experienced; they might have won easily and would maybe have gone home not knowing what they had to do to beat Leicester. Now they know; it’s going to be difficult, but Munster at Thomond Park are terribly hard to beat,” he said.