Munster scrum and creativity cause concern

THE agony and ecstasy of sport, all delivered in the blink of an eye.

Lifeimi Mafi’s spectacular breakout, bonus-point try at the death of an interesting Magners League encounter was a thing of beauty and would not look out of place in a compilation of the Barbarians’ best tries.

Its origins, stemming from an audacious cross-field kick from Denis Leamy on his own goal line in injury time which found Paul Warwick out wide, set in motion a trail of events that brought a decent-sized Thomond Park crowd to its feet.

The strangest irony was that Munster had struggled throughout in terms of invention and creativity and then from nowhere produced a passage of play that sent the fans ecstatic.

That was until images of a distraught Jerry Flannery being carried from the field appeared on the screen at precisely the same moment his team-mates were swapping high fives. After 28 minutes of his latest comeback, another calf problem.

In his efforts to support the Warwick breakout, disaster struck yet again with the hooker pulling up in agony.

That lad deserves a break and on the first day of a new year everyone is entitled to hope for new beginnings. Not for Flannery, as the treatment table beckons once more and concerns about his very future must raise their heads once again.

In a World Cup year, it’s a crushing blow not only for the player himself and for Munster but also for Ireland. I wish him well.

This victory sees Munster sitting pretty on top of the Magners League with an imposing nine-point cushion over the Scarlets.

The play-off system at the end of the season renders the margin of their lead irrelevant in some respects as this tournament will be decided in those one-off games at the back-end of May. When those fixtures do come around, Munster will hope to still have the distraction of the Heineken Cup to deal with, but there is still much work to be done for that to happen.

The scrum remains the focal point and on the evidence of Saturday night, Peter Borlase is not the immediate solution.

Tony Buckley made an impact on his introduction and fared much better on Bryan Young, and indeed on his international rival Tom Court, than the New Zealander. It doesn’t help when the referee, perhaps influenced by perception, seems to constantly pitch himself on the tight head side of every Munster scrum (regardless of who is wearing the red No 3 jersey) poised to award a penalty.

My frustration with the officiating at scrum time is well known but as if to emphasise a point, I monitored the scrums in the opening half. In total there were eight, excluding resets of which there were three in one scrum sequence alone. Only three scrums were completed satisfactorily with two free kicks and three full penalties awarded from the other five.

FLANNERY'S presence boosted the Munster set piece on his introduction and his loss will be felt in Toulon. At this stage, the Munster management must start Paul O’Connell, despite his chronic shortage of game time, with the instruction to ‘play until you drop’ alongside ample cover for him on the bench. His sheer presence would offer an incalculable lift and there’s no point holding him back at this stage.

Elsewhere, Munster’s lack of creativity behind the scrum, despite that wonder try at the death, is a concern.

For the majority of the game they were predictable and easy to defend against. A magnificent line break from Scott Deasy in the lead up to Denis Hurley's try offered the only spark of invention. That needs to be addressed, while the balance in midfield also needs to be looked at again.

A word too for Ulster, who made a massive contribution to the contest. But for poor discipline in the opening half, they would have enjoyed better than a four-point lead at the break. This was a very young side, stripped of their Springbok spine and thrown into the lion’s den. In that opening half they thrived, and on the evidence of this performance their diminutive scrum-half Paul Marshall, who managed to make Peter Stringer look like a big man, contributed far more than we have seen from Ruan Pienaar all season. In fact, there is now a major case to be made for shifting Pienaar to out-half and retaining Marshall with the crucial Heineken Cup game against Biarritz in mind.

We also saw a star in the making in Luke Marshall.

He lit up the very first game of rugby in the new Aviva Stadium last July when playing against his peers in that opening development game. Thrown in against the big boys in Thomond Park, he showed sufficient quality both in attack and defence to suggest that the Aviva could well become his home from home in the green of Ireland.

Much to ponder for both management teams then.