Munster’s season-defining fortnight

FOUR tries against old foes, a bonus point and a stretching of their lead atop the Magners League is not a bad start to the New Year by any stretch of the imagination for Munster.

Yet there is so much more at stake for the province in the coming weeks that more needs to be read into this derby victory than just the scoreline.

The Mediterranean was the last place to have entered anyone’s imagination during a cold, wet night in Limerick on Saturday, yet for Munster, the enormity of their visit to Toulon in two weeks is inescapable.

The season hangs in the balance with the Heineken Cup round five trip to the south of France. Defeat to Pool Three leaders Toulon at Stade Felix-Mayol on January 16 and Munster will undoubtedly fail to qualify for the knockout stages of Europe’s premier club competition for the first time since 1997-98.

Given the remarkable feats of escapism in campaigns past, only a fool would write them off from securing a do-or-die away win, but the level at which Munster have played in recent weeks is turning even the staunchest of believers into fools at a remarkable rate.

Holiday wins over both Connacht and Ulster leave Tony McGahan’s side sitting pretty in the Magners League but same have provided more puzzles than solutions.

A creaking scrum is the most obvious of flaws to pour heart and soul into on the training field in the coming days with just one game, a home Magners League fixture with Glasgow this Saturday, to iron out the faults in competitive conditions.

The Ulster game on Saturday night added further concerns, at the breakdown, in defence and in attack before reinforcements from the bench in the second-half produced the tries to settle nerves a little.

Tommy O’Donnell, Barry Murphy and Lifeimi Mafi, substitutes all, followed starting wing Denis Hurley onto the score-sheet after Munster set about retrieving a 10-6 half-time deficit.

Hurley’s 53rd minute try, his first since last March, got the fight-back rolling after a great line break from Scott Deasy as the home backs sparked for the first time. There was dominance without points when Ulster were down to 14 men following a 60th-minute yellow card to Neil McComb, but then back row O’Donnell, on for Niall Ronan, heaved over the line for the second and Murphy pounced on a mistake by the otherwise superb Ulster scrum-half Paul Marshall to dribble the oval ball from halfway to the posts.

Then, right at the death, following a yellow card, Munster’s 10th in the Magners this season, to Doug Howlett, and Ulster’s keeping the ball alive only to turn it over, Mafi completed a move started on his own line by an improbable cross-field kick from Denis Leamy, that was as creative as the first 50 minutes had been uninspired.

The only shame was that returning hooker Jerry Flannery was injured in the process, 28 minutes after making his first appearance since October as a 54th-minute sub. By the time Paul Warwick slotted the conversion to end the game, the unfortunate Flannery was being helped down the tunnel, with the results of a scan on his injured right calf, not the one previously the cause of his woe, expected later today.

If Flannery’s injury took the gloss off a stirring three-try finish, then those scores papered over a less than satisfying performance over the first 50 minutes.

It was a disjointed Munster first-half performance against an inexperienced but committed Ulster side that missed its big-money South African contingent and the injured Stephen Ferris, but still managed to leave the home side trailing by four at the interval and in serious need of a spark.

That Munster won the second half 29-0 having added four tries for what had seemed a distinctly unlikely bonus point caught even McGahan by surprise.

“In the first half I thought we showed some good effort in what we were trying to do, probably lacked a little bit of ambition, got some good roll on at time, it was a line out here, a scrum here, off our feet here, a kick here, lot of momentum took away, that’s the nature of it.

“You really need to finish things off, and we worked hard to get into positions but let ourselves down with those small errors. Second half we put together some good field positions and good phases and really put some good pressure on them and played for the full 40 minutes in the second half.”

As McGahan pointed out, the second-half rally was a sign of confidence being restored and he is banking on it continuing through this Saturday night against Glasgow and on to the Toulon showdown.

Munster will have no restrictions for the Glasgow game in terms of selecting Ireland players, so the likes of Ronan O’Gara, David Wallace and Donncha O’Callaghan, rested on Saturday, all come back into the reckoning.

“This week was a step forward, we certainly realise there are parts of our game not up to scratch and we need to improve or we won’t progress any further,” McGahan added. “We are certainly realistic on those fronts and we understand that.”

MUNSTER: S Deasy; D Howlett, K Earls, S Tuitupou (L Mafi, 56), Denis Hurley (B Murphy, 75); P Warwick, P Stringer (T O’Leary, 53); W du Preez (Darragh Hurley, 71), D Varley (J Flannery, 53), P Borlase (T Buckley, 51); D Ryan, M O’Driscoll; B Holland (P Butler, 75), N Ronan (T O’Donnell, 71), D Leamy (capt).

ULSTER: J Smith (D McIlwaine, 71); T Seymour, I Whitten, L Marshall, S Danielli; P Wallace, P Marshall; B Young (D Fitzpatrick, 65), R Best (capt), D Fitzpatrick (T Court, h/t): T Barker (N McComb, H-T), R Caldwell; TJ Anderson, W Faloon, R Diack (C Henry, 51).

Referee: Dudley Phillips (IRFU).