Penney trusts Munster hooker Varley

The mortification a rugby hooker always fears is to lose a strike against the head, and coming a close second is to see his darts fly over the heads of his lineout jumpers.

While he avoided the greater ignominy in the Stade de France last Saturday, Damien Varley nevertheless left Paris on something of a downer. Racing Metro stole four of his throws and the inevitable reaction is that it was the hooker’s fault. However, Varley and his coaches have studied the video and he has been cleared of all but one of the errors that made it such a frustrating afternoon for the Munster men.

“One was a throw, one was a lift error, one was a call error and one was a great bit of defence, a system error if you like,” insisted coach Rob Penney.

“When you hit four errors in a lineout, it looks bad but they’re all different things. I’ve got a lot of faith in our lineout and our throwers and I don’t think it’s a real issue.”

That kind of endorsement comes as sweet music to Varley’s ears. And, quite clearly, it didn’t help his cause that Paul O’Connell was clearly not match fit or that he called only a minimum of throws on himself while Donncha O’Callaghan, always such an influential figure at number two, was missing altogether.

Varley wasn’t using that as an excuse, instead he stated the facts as he saw them: “Four throws went wrong but I wouldn’t be overly concerned about them. We’re here to prepare for a new contest and anything that did happen is extremely fixable. There were one or two that I take responsibility for but we take responsibility for them as a collective group.

“Paul knows more about lineouts than most in this game. He calls where he feels the best space is for us to win the ball and I wouldn’t be particularly concerned whether he called them to himself or not. We have 100% confidence in his calling, I certainly do when I’m throwing in the ball. I have the utmost faith when he’s calling it to so we try and execute that as best we can.”

Notwithstanding the common sense of Varley’s words, many still find it difficult to understand why he should have sent two balls way over the back of the lineout altogether.

“The first one, I would have overthrown, the second was probably a communication issue in the line itself where nobody went up,” he explains.

“Then there was one where they got up towards the front and intercepted it and the second, they contested it extremely well so they’re the four that went wrong for us.”

Varley was happy to move on from Paris and look ahead to Sunday’s must-win game at Thomond Park. He was a member of the Munster side that defeated Edinburgh at Murrayfield at the start of the season but doesn’t see that as any reason to be in any way complacent about the outcome this time round.

“They have a big pack, an extremely good lineout and scrum and a lot of internationals,” he said. “They contest the lineout very well by getting people into the air, putting pressure on the hooker, putting pressure on the jumper to hold on to the ball. We’re facing into a different competition and whatever happened in the first round of the Rabo Pro 12, everything is going to be 10 times faster and harder this time so it will be a tough competition for us at lineout and scrum. We’ve shown against some of the best teams that we came out with 100% success rate at lineouts.”

One of the great regrets of the Racing game was Munster’s failure to capitalise on their supremacy at scrum-time in the first quarter or so during which they might well have had a penalty try. It was a phase of the game, too, in which Varley’s loose head partner David Kilcoyne was really earning his corn.

“Dave is a great young guy who is bringing a lot to the table,” said Varley. “He’s strong, we can all see his ball carrying abilities around the field, and no matter what age you are, scrummaging is something you have to keep learning, no matter what age you are or whatever experience you have, so, yes, I have the utmost faith in Dave.

“Scrummaging is an extremely difficult area for referees because it’s very hard for anyone to understand it unless you’ve played in the front row. When the conditions are poor, like against Racing, and there were lots of collapses, calls will go against certain guys and sometimes more experienced players get the benefit of the call and there are times when the younger guys get harshly done by. Some of the calls last week went against us at times when we were clearly the dominant side. So, yeah, I am mystified at times by certain decisions that go against us.”