Ryan: Time to walk the walk

Donnacha Ryan has demanded Munster players rediscover their mental strength against Gloucester at Thomond Park this weekend as the province tries to regroup from the Heineken Cup shocker at Edinburgh.

Head coach Rob Penney pinpointed poor mental preparation for the error-strewn performance at Murrayfield in Saturday’s Pool 6 opener as his side went down 29-23 to the Rabo Direct Pro 12 league’s bottom side.

Ryan admitted Munster had been unable to live up to the standards the squad had set for themselves the previous week in beating Leinster and in the build-up to the tie.

Now the focus, he said, had to be on successfully transferring pre-game intensity onto the big stage.

“It was poles apart (from the Leinster game). It probably looked like we were playing with the handbrake on,” Ryan said.

“Anything that could go wrong did go wrong and we were at fault for our own demise. We had a lot of mental errors, a lot of knock-ons and the intensity of last week wasn’t there.

“We would have had an edge in training last week but for whatever reason it just didn’t materialise on the field and that’s the transition we need to have, from training park to big match day in terms of execution. So we’ll refocus our standards and hopefully we’ll progress. But there’s no point bursting a gasket in training and not doing it in the match. We just need to focus on the areas where we went wrong and if it was the mental aspect, we’ll have a real focus on that as well for next week, especially playing at home. So the importance of training will be heightened this week.”

Ryan agreed Munster could not afford to reflect too long on the error of their ways with old foes Gloucester returning to Limerick on Saturday, cock-a-hoop from an opening round home victory over Perpignan.

“Anytime you lose a Heineken Cup or any match in a Munster jersey you’re very disappointed and embarrassed in the sense that you have a lot of people coming over and supporting us and you’d like to return the favour.

“So not raising the intensity like we know we can was disappointing.

“The boys are all doom and gloom about it now but the mental strength is going to have to be there to be looking forward to next week, otherwise we’ll be talking ourselves down and it will be a lot harder to refocus.”

Also of concern for the Ireland lock is the failure of the Munster lineout, losing ball on four out of 12 throws, three of which were stolen by Edinburgh’s second-row pairing of Grant Gilchrist and Sean Cox, denying the visitors a crucial attacking platform. “We had only lost one lineout in all the games up to now so they obviously had their homework done on us. They reacted very well and we’re really disappointed because it’s a strong part of our game. For whatever reason it didn’t click but we’re going to have to brush up during the week to be focused for next weekend.”