Why I will never criticise Munster marvels

“DON’T spare them now!” a man said to me on Saturday referring to the Munster team that had lost the Heineken Cup quarter-final the previous evening, “don’t spare them!” he repeated.

I was in the uplifting company of Dominic and Christy Hanley, coming off Charleville’s beautiful golf-course, and was just about to tuck into the big breakfast in the clubhouse, a consolation for what had just happened on the course.

“Don’t spare them.” Never would I dream of laying into the lads on this Munster team, never. They went out against Llanelli Friday night determined to give their best. They tried to give their best, they did their utmost to do their best; they failed.

Those of us who would be familiar with Munster – and we’re in the tens of thousands by now – saw the signs early. On Friday evening, Munster were out of sync. The little areas where normally they stick, they slipped. Tackles were missed, balls dropped, passes fumbled – a bit like Dominic and myself on Saturday morning, they were out of sync. Do you know that feeling? Afterwards Declan Kidney came in for a lot of criticism for not having played his front-line players the previous Friday evening against Ulster.

Valid criticism, but misplaced. A few days before the game I heard Declan explain his reasoning, and I felt he was absolutely right. One to ten, those are the most demanding positions on any rugby team, physically and mentally. From one to ten is where Munster are represented on the Irish team, a team that has just come through a thrilling but attritional Six-Nations tournament. Everything came down to the last day, and that last day was against Italy in Rome, probably the most attritional game of all in this tournament.

Those Irish players were exhausted, were utterly spent, but the Munster boys especially so.

Declan Kidney knows them, knows them better, probably, than they even know themselves. Having consulted them and sounded them out, he felt that the last thing they needed just six days later was another attritional contest in Ravenhill. So he rested them, and he was right.

Munster lacked a lot of things on Friday evening. They seemed to lack the kind of bottomless, boundless energy we have become so used to. They seemed to lack the kind of bottomless, boundless hunger we’ve become used to. They seemed to lack the kind of bottomless, boundless belief in themselves that we’ve become used to. They weren’t running on empty, but for sure they had gone into their reserves on all three critical areas.

What they needed, going into this Llanelli game, was more time.

Something will have to be done about the timing of these Heineken Cup quarter-finals. Something too will have to be done about the Magners League, about the number and regularity of games and about the number of games for which the internationals are released. It’s not good to have a team sitting idle mid-season for several weeks, it’s not good to ask players who have just come off a most intense seven-week programme of five big games to go almost straight into another intense high-profile game, but with a different team.

Three weeks after the end of the Six-Nations, that should be the minimum to the Heineken Cup quarter-final, three weeks.

Don’t spare them? On Sunday evening, purely by chance, I bumped into Donncha O’Callaghan and his girlfriend in Kilkenny. Normally an ebullient character, incessantly cheerful, Donncha was down, subdued and dejected. Don’t spare them? No need; these guys don’t spare themselves.

No-one expects more of them than they expect of themselves.

No-one is more disappointed when they don’t deliver.

On Saturday afternoon Christy, Dominic and myself met again, this time in Doneraile Golf Club, truly one of Ireland’s hidden gems.

We all had a rare day off, were determined to make the most of it, but there was more to it than that – Dom and myself wanted a chance of redemption. And we took it.

This time it was Christy on the receiving end and the few euro went back to its original owners. For Munster, unfortunately, no second chance a few hours later, no opportunity for immediate redemption. Don’t spare them? Every way I can, I will, because in so many ways, on so many days, they have lightened our load, brightened our lives. Relax for a few weeks lads, relax.

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