Gracious Gaffney hails ‘balanced’ Munster

ALAN GAFFNEY believes so strongly that Munster are now a “better balanced” side than when he left the province three years ago, that he plans to have a little wager on them to beat Toulouse in the Heineken Cup final on May 24th.

In the wake of his side’s heart-breaking defeat at the Ricoh Arena, Gaffney said that while the forward pack was almost identical, Munster now had a few more options with Tomas O’Leary at scrum half.

“I’m not commenting on whether he should be there or not and he had a very strong game in the quarter-final. There is no doubt about that. But Strings (Peter Stringer) is still a good player and adding Tipoki and Mafi at 12 and 13 has added a new dimension and Howlett on the wing is an extremely good player. Hurley didn’t get many opportunities today but I was impressed with what he did against Gloucester. They’re bringing some young players through. They can attack and they did put us under a lot of pressure, so they’ve come a long way since I left them.”

And so the million dollar question already obsessing the minds of the Munster supporters: how will they fare against Toulouse.

“I know the aristocrats are in the final and Toulouse can do wondrous things but I love the hard edge of Munster,” he said. “I may be biased in my response but I just think it’s a balanced team. They still have a very good set piece. People have been decrying the scrum for years and years. Paul McCarthy (Munster’s scrum coach) has been working very hard in that area, and I think they’re strong enough across the pitch now to handle Toulouse. And, you know, I might have a small wager on them to win the final.”

Gracious words from a true sportsman, certainly not one to in any way blame the referee for his side’s loss, even if there were a number of his players and supporters who were irate at several decisions, not least the penalty against Richard Hill at a ruck in the last minute that effectively brought the game to an end.

“I have no queries with the referee,” he said. “I would have liked that decision at the end to go our way and there are always going to be things that don’t go entirely your way. I couldn’t have asked for any more from my players. It’s a very emotional dressing-room.

‘‘Not too many gave us too much hope coming today except ourselves and given what we dished up over the past few weeks, there was good reason for that. We knew we had it in us, but we shot ourselves in the foot in their 22 too often today.

‘‘We just weren’t as accurate in their 22 and conceded two or three penalties in that zone. The try before half time came from a penalty we gave away in Munster territory. They took the quick tap and our guys didn’t react quickly enough and Munster took the try very well. As I’ve told the players many times, it’s a game of small margins. I’d be sitting here with a large grin if certain things happened and instead I’m sitting here pretty disillusioned.”

Neil De Kock saw the evolution of the game in very much the same terms as Gaffney, stressing how they failed to cash in on their field advantage for much of the first half. Having two players sin-binned in the space of a couple of minutes in the middle of the second half was another frustration, especially because Munster’s Rua Tipoki had departed the scene just a few moments previously.

He said: “When you play Munster, you have to be physical at the break down, mauls and rucks and they did put us under pressure. They defended well and put in a few fierce one-on-one hits. We were aware of the physicality they would bring to the match and I commended the guys for the way they stood up to it.”