Favourites tag does not rest easily with Payne

SHAUN PAYNE laughs at the conundrum. Munster win away from home against a tough French outfit, but arrive home to find the question on everyone’s lips is: “What went wrong?”

The Munster full-back is a little dismayed by the fact that Munster fans expected their team “to breeze in and out of there” and win comfortably.

There is, he says, a little bit of self-delusion going on here.

“I don’t know where the supposition comes from,” he says.

“They really were no push-over, you know. Yes, we did go wide and were a bit expansive and they caught us twice on the turnover — that’s 14 points right there — so maybe it was a little bit suicidal in hindsight.

“But a lot of good things came out of it. Sure, we’ll have to tighten it up a bit, but the positive things included the fact that we were able to spin the ball wide from within our own 22 and get it right up to their try line, and also that Marcus (Horan) scored a great try and so did Lifeimi (Mafi).”

Payne says the lessons have been learnt ahead of the Leicester game and that Munster will play the situations that face them with more savvy.

“If there is an option to go wide against Leicester then we will take it, but the trick is not to do it all the time,” he says with a wistful smile. “If we do it all the time, we’ll get smashed.”

He says this on the basis not only of his own experience in the game, but also a deep-rooted knowledge and appreciation of what Leicester can do to opponents, even opponents like Munster and even in Thomond Park.

“They have a massive pedigree and they know what it takes to go away from home and win. They will come here and won’t be over-awed by what’s happening here. Certainly there have been teams who came here wide-eyed and were completely overcome by the occasion. I don’t think that’ll happen to them.”

He points to the form Leicester have shown since their defeat by Munster at Welford Road, and says last week’s victory over Cardiff illustrates the point dramatically.

“It wasn’t a case of Cardiff folding or anything, Leicester just hammered them. And you have to remember that we nearly lost to them, apart from a very good kick by Ronan. That loss was definitely always going to motivate them coming here. Think how we might have felt had we been in their shoes.

“I can guarantee you they’ve been thinking about this game for about two or three weeks now, maybe even since the draw was made. This was always going to be a crunch game and if you were to have taken a bet on it, your money would have been on the group being decided in this game.”

Nevertheless, Payne reckons that Munster haven’t really hit their stride fully in the competition and that there is more yet to come.

“I don’t think we’ve played to 100% yet, but we are sure going to have to do that on Saturday. There’s going to be a lot of pressure on them, but that just makes them all the more dangerous.

“We’re the same in many ways because our best performances have come when we were under the most pressure, and they are a very similar side to us in the way they approach the game.

“I just hope the supporters don’t write them off. Remember, we’re always better when we are the underdogs and that makes me a little nervous about this game, to be honest. We are in the quarter-finals already and there doesn’t seem to be the same pressure as when we’ve really needed results.

“Certainly there is motivation aplenty in the camp; it’s just that we are in an unfamiliar position right now.”