Lunchtime crunch now an advantage, says Ryan
The television-dictated time reduces the influence of the crowd and usually makes for a duller affair. When Munster were chosen for two back-to-back games to end their Heineken Cup campaign the news was greeted with dread from players and supporters alike. But now Donnacha Ryan can see the benefit of it.
As the race to secure the remaining quarter-final spots heightens, Munster’s main rivals for qualification play tomorrow giving Ryan and colleagues full knowledge of what they have to do against Racing to qualify.
“Obviously we won’t know an awful lot until after Saturday’s games but it’s certainly ironic. A number of weeks ago we were a bit bemused at having to play a game on Sunday at lunch but it now appears it could work in our favour.”
That knowledge is a double edged sword, though. The information they gleam from tomorrow’s results may add to an already pressurised environment.
“There’s pressure on us every week. There was pressure on us last week and more pressure on us now. Basically we have to focus on what we have got to do ourselves and get ourselves right in the head to perform.”
That attitude shows why Ryan is not likely to join most Munstermen tomorrow in totting up the tables. Neither is he likely to get worked up by watching every kick or bounce of the ball.
“I’ll be trying to keep a relaxed frame of mind and stay focused on what we’ve got to do.
“I had wanted to watch the matches last weekend but didn’t want to get wound up either. I think it’s important to remain cool and realise we’ve got to be tuned into our job Sunday.”
One of Ryan’s strengths these last couple of seasons — recognised at national level — has been his organisational skills centred on the lineout. By his own standards he was disappointed by Munster’s display out of touch these last couple of weeks, in the RaboDirect Pro12 loss to Cardiff Blues and in the early stages of last week’s Heineken Cup win over Edinburgh, in particular.
“I think I’d have to take a bit of ownership of what happened in the Cardiff game, I wouldn’t have had a lot of a relationship built up with Sean Henry and that probably would have been my fault.
“I think if you have a good rapport with the thrower it does help, especially when you’re under pressure. Certainly the Cardiff game didn’t go so well and at the start of the game last week there were mistakes, but Damien Varley had a fantastic day.
“We did a lot of work on it last week and a lot of video analysis and I thought the lineout performed really well after that.”
Ryan is conscious that Munster didn’t help themselves in several matches this season, particularly through a repeatedly high error count. Still, he believes in the plan and the capability of individuals and team alike.
“I thought we did some really good things and created a lot of chances and thought it was astute of us to take the points early and focus on winning the game and then open up.
“Obviously we had a lot of unforced errors but the conditions were quite tricky and we tried to force the game. Towards the end we kind of got very loose and allowed them in for two tries but it just verified what we did earlier on in the game by taking our penalties first.”
It’s likely to be caution rather than blind ambition first on Sunday too.
“Racing have a massive amount of depth in their squad. We started off very well over there and we tried to do things that we wouldn’t have normally tried to do, obviously it backfired on us so we’ve got to be a lot smarter from the way we’ve played the first day and, I suppose, the way we’ve played the last couple of weeks.
“We’ve really got to focus on building a system and not doing silly stuff, not doing one-off runners and losing the ball in the breakdown. We have to tighten things up, to have more control when we have the ball in attack and make it count.”
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