O’Connell: Things will get cranky
One, that the atmosphere will be “cranky” at University of Limerick training today and Musgrave Park on Thursday. And he also predicts he won’t have too much work to do as captain to get the team up to the required tempo following the dismal performance against Leinster at the RDS on Saturday.
O’Connell watched most of that game from the sidelines before being introduced midway through the second half at a point when there was little or nothing he could do to redress the situation. But he also had a perfect view of Munster’s many shortcomings and acknowledges the need for a vastly different mindset and attitude going into the Heineken Cup matches against Northampton and Treviso over the next couple of weeks.
“I don’t think it will take much for me to motivate the guys,” said O’Connell at yesterday’s Irish launch of the 2010 Heineken Cup in Dublin. “If we don’t bounce back from a performance like that, we’re facing a very long year. We’d be in trouble if the guys needed me or any of the senior players to sort things out. We’re successful enough a team to realise that being beaten 30 points to nil by Leinster needs us to take a look at ourselves. It won’t have a lot to do with me. Guys will be looking after themselves and making sure that we all individually and then as a team produce a performance that is more synonymous with how Munster play.
“Things can be cranky in the squad after a disappointment like that; they generally are after we lose. You can definitely go over the top sometimes but this is a big game at the weekend and we need to make sure we’re ready and right to play for that. It would be very easy to wade into a load of contact and that kind of thing in training but we must make sure that we get our attitude right first and foremost and see what technical problems we have after that.”
O’Connell sat beside his coach, Tony McGahan, and this time there was no banter, no joking, more an agreement what happened at the RDS on Saturday night was not acceptable. At least the coach was able to report a clean bill of health for Saturday with Denis Leamy having suffered no ill effects of the knock he took to his neck late in the game and Alan Quinlan also back to full fitness.
“I’ve been here before with Munster and Ireland,” said O’Connell. “When you try to develop your game plan as we’ve been doing for the past few weeks, sometimes you can leave your basics behind and we may have taken the things that made us good for granted. That’s down to the players. We need to make sure that we do the simple things well and that’s something we’ve always tried to do.
“We play good rugby after that. But you look at our set piece, our line-out, our kicking game, our breakdown work at the weekend, things that really are the foundation of your game, and we were second best by a long way in all those aspects. If we were to start thinking that after Saturday all our problems were technical, we’d be wrong. They were more of mindset and attitude so there’s not a lot to be achieved knocking lumps out of each other in training until we’re happy where we are mentally going into games.”
People searching for ways of excusing Munster’s display against Leinster might use the slow return of the key players, injuries and the imminence of the Heineken Cup. Refreshingly, however, O’Connell wasn’t for going down that road.
“The Magners League is high on our focus, it was last year, the level of consistency we achieved was something we had aspired to for a very long time and I think it helped us then to play some of the best rugby we’ve ever played in the Heineken Cup, apart from the semi-final of course,” he stated. “We treated every game as big as the other. When we went on the road, we made sure our standards stayed high and that’s something we aspire to do all the time and that’s why Saturday was such a big disappointment.”
Many observers might have wished Munster an easier task to get back on the horse after such a hiding but O’Connell doesn’t see it that way, pointing out that “no matter what the game, I think the guys will be very enthusiastic to get out there and put last Saturday behind. The fact that it’s such an important game for our season makes it all the better.
You’re always trying to improve your game but the most important thing is that you stay true to what made you good and develop without ever losing sight of that. And maybe that’s what happened at the weekend.”
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