Varley: We must bring intensity to new level

Monday afternoon and Damian Varley was still feeling the pain — physical and emotional — from Saturday’s bruising RaboDirect Pro12 encounter with old rivals Leinster.

As Rob Penney revealed, several players had described the experience as tougher than Munster’s Heineken Cup quarter final victory over Harlequins, and you got the feeling Varley was amongst them.

“Yeah, bruising, some of us are feeling it,” said the hooker, “it was a very disappointing result especially because I thought we played really good rugby at times. However, we probably made some poor decisions and mistakes at key times in key areas and that let us down. Hats off to Leinster who worked hard when they got near the line, there was some great defence by us for a long while but they snuck over eventually.”

Hopes of bringing their RaboDirect season down to the wire have long since gone for Munster – they won’t be involved in the four way play-off for the title — but the season is still alive with a huge European semi-final with Clermont Auvergne looming large.

A disappointed Varley sees benefits from the Leinster despite the outcome. “There are positives to be gained from the intensity, the physicality and from our performance in the set piece; we were able to generate very good ball from which to attack, and we defended very well for a long time. One of the main positives is the attitude of the players going into and throughout the game, and that’s important leading into what’s going to be a huge two weeks.

“We knew Leinster was going to be huge, especially coming off the back of such a good Heineken Cup win. We knew it would take an extra effort to focus and to realise that even though we were in a poor position in the Rabo that Leinster at home is enough to motivate guys in itself. Being able to back up the previous week’s performance, although we didn’t get the result we wanted, was a positive.”

First up is this weekend’s Rabo clash with Newport Gwent Dragons and Varley believes it is as important as any in terms of the overall preparation for Montpellier, it’s an opportunity, he feels, for one or two players to step up and challenge for a starting place against Clermont.

“We’ll be looking at ourselves in the coming days; from where we are we need to get our standards up, we have to get the intensity we had in the last two weeks and bring that to another level again to beat a French team in France. It has been challenging to beat those teams down there and there’s nothing different. We will focus on the areas we feel we need to focus on. We have to bring a higher intensity to France, there are some big men in that Clermont team and it will be particularly bruising; I think the intensity and execution has to be another level higher and mistakes must be kept to a minimum. The history of Munster is that we’ve been there before, but it’s also new for a lot of players, we have always spoken of the history and of the players that have gone before. Now, I suppose, it’s time for a new group to make a statement, to be a part of the Munster legacy and the next few weeks I hope will prove we can do that.”