Payne primed for Clermont clash

THIS time last year Shaun Payne was a key member of the Munster team battling through the qualifying rounds of the Heineken Cup.

Now, however, he’s finally exchanged his track suit and boots for the suit and tie in his role as team manager, and as a veteran of 33 European appearances, he insists Munster won’t be fazed by whatever side Clermont coach, Kiwi Vern Cotter, puts on the Stade Marcel Michelin pitch on Sunday.

“We can speculate all we like on French selections and who they put in their sides and who they don’t,” said Payne. “But on the day, you know you’re going to have to perform to the best of your ability, especially when they’re at home.

“There’s a little bit of history between us and Clermont, not bad history, but I reckon they’ll be dead keen to beat us because we got past them by one point in last year’s pool. They’re a very proud club with high ambitions in Europe.”

That certainly didn’t seem to be the case 12 months ago. For their own reasons – relating to the significance attached to the French championship rather than Europe – they brought an understrength side to Thomond Park. Coach Vern Cotter must regret that decision given how close they came to qualifying for the quarter-finals.

They lost their first match of this campaign at home to Sale Sharks but then beat Montauban away; they sent a weaker-than-usual side to bottom club Mont de Marsan last week, and the assumption now is that they will be at full-strength against Munster, with captain Aurelien Rougerie fit again to play on the wing.

“You never seem to be able to tell with a French team,” said Payne. “If we started thinking about that, we’d be doing ourselves a disservice. We need to focus on ourselves and make sure we play to the best of our ability no matter who they put out or who they played the week before.

“They need to win on Sunday in the context of the pool situation. You lose your first home game in the Heineken Cup, you’re under pressure from rounds two to six. You need to win everything. I wish I could see into their heads and see what their motivation is.”

Payne added that though Montauban were supposed to have fielded a weakened side in their first game of the current campaign, they nearly became only the second team ever to leave Thomond Park with a European win.

He also points to Munster’s decidedly slow start in last year’s corresponding fixture: “We sat back for the first 30 minutes. We just watched but once we got over that period and started playing our own game, we went a lot better. I think that’s a lesson for this weekend, we need to get in there and play from the start and not sit back and watch. We can’t allow Pierre Mignoni (Clermont’s highly dangerous French scrum-half and scorer of a try in last season’s game at Stade Marcel Michelin) and the others run about a bit. They picked up a couple of early tries and we were struggling from then on and we had to perform heroics in the second half just to salvage the bonus point that made all the difference in the end.”

He paused to stop for a moment and then recalled: “We wouldn’t have won the Heineken Cup without it – and don’t forget they had a drop goal right at the end that went just wide – believe me, I was at the back watching it. But we’re under no illusions about Sunday. They have (Aurelien) Rougerie back on the wing, a player who in any one match can do two or three things that will lift a side. He’s a player of pace, power and skill, and is a very good counter attacker. One good run, one good tackle, can lift the other 14. He is their talisman and is vital to them. He’s even good looking, I think.”

The Munster line-out spluttered badly last Friday night against Llanelli in the Magners League but they’ve worked on that over the last few days. Payne was happy enough with the first half display but accepted that after the break Munster sat back.

“A couple of silly penalties, 15-3, 15-6, 15-9, all of a sudden, the crowd is back into it and they get their tails up. We played virtually the whole game in our half. So, once again what it showed us is that we can’t afford to sit back, we need to go out and be proactive and play our own game.”

Typical of Munster, they see positives in most things and that applies to the Scarlets game.

“Believe me, we always use poor performances as motivating factors,” stressed the manager. “I can absolutely guarantee you, more than anything it’s a motivating factor, especially for a big game like this with a lot of meaning. We can lift our performances for the following week. You could read the same thing into Montauban. A poor performance at home was followed by a great performance the following week at Sale. It sharpens the mind".