O’Mahony urges Munster to ignore the what ifs

Munster captain Peter O’Mahony has urged his players to forget Heineken Cup quarter-final permutations and concentrate on getting stuck into Edinburgh at Thomond Park on Sunday.

With qualification for the knockout stages secured a week ahead of schedule thanks to Saturday’s 20-7 victory at Gloucester, Munster must hope results during the final round of the pool stages go their way this weekend to claim a home draw for the last eight, even if they manage a maximum five points with a bonus-point win over Edinburgh.

Munster’s victory at Kingsholm, secured by a second-half try by O’Mahony, was a second big away win of the Pool 6 campaign, having beaten Perpignan in France in round four, and after last season’s quarter-final success at Harlequins a road trip this April would not unduly faze the province.

O’Mahony, though, wants some focus on a more immediate task, getting the job done against the Scots, whose victory over Perpignan, allied to an opening-round shock home win against Munster and an away win at Gloucester last month has pushed them into second place in the pool.

“We’ve got to go to Thomond Park next weekend and we’ve got to put in a performance,” O’Mahony said. “We’re going to have to get a good win and then it’s whatever happens after that. There’s another game to go in this competition and we all know it’s a bizarre competition at times and there’s things here and there, you can never be sure.

“We’ve got to go and attack next week. We have to get stuck in and put in a good performance.”

That first-round loss at Murrayfield in October was a major setback but O’Mahony praised the way his side rebounded with four European victories in a row to seal qualification in the penultimate round of pool games with Saturday’s hard-fought win at Gloucester.

“To be fair to everyone involved, we’ve worked hard for it. We worked very hard for it [on Saturday], it was a tough game and I think we expected nothing else coming to Kingsholm.

“But we have to go and back it up now. We weren’t happy with ourselves after [losing to] Ulster and we had a couple of good conversations and to be fair, the boys reacted on Tuesday and we had good session Thursday. We just felt good all week, felt like we were in a good place and we put in a good Munster performance.”

Rob Penney’s side put in a massive defensive effort to keep Gloucester scoreless in the second half, having gone into the break with the game delicately balanced at 10-7 to the visitors — Charlie Sharples with a converted try on the stroke of half time.

That prompted an all-out assault on the Munster line at the restart, with O’Mahony and his team-mates holding firm during a relentless opening 10 minutes, which gave an Anthony Foley-coached defence a confidence boost for the rest of match.

“I think it’s the way this side is going,” O’Mahony said. “We’re maturing nicely and that was definitely a showing of our maturity. There were young guys out there and we stuck by what we knew and what Axel [Anthony Foley] is coaching us. Nobody made decisions for them and our defence was very good.”

Fellow forward Dave Foley was one of those younger guys, making his Heineken Cup debut in a second row alongside man of the match Paul O’Connell, and the captain praised the performances of both locks.

“Dave Foley was huge,” O’Mahony said. “His lineout work, his lineout defence work, his general physicality around the place [was super]. It was his first Heineken Cup start and he was on the ball.

“[O’Connell] was awesome for us, like he always is. For me as captain it’s great to have someone like that around, just to get his thinking on decisions. Hearing what he has to say is always so important to me so it’s great to have him alongside me.”

O’Mahony, 24, sees captaincy predecessor O’Connell’s presence in the pack as nothing but a positive to his growing leadership experience during his first season as Munster skipper.

“One hundred per cent. He’s a hugely important part of this team and hugely important to me as well. Paulie’s been captaining teams for 20 years at this stage and I’m only in the door compared to how long he’s been here, so every bit of advice and every bit of help that I can get off him, I’ll take it.”

Also getting the seal of approval from Saturday’s win in Gloucester were the Munster fans who descended on Kingsholm and even cheekily took up residency in the home side’s legendary pitch-long terrace known as ‘The Shed’. The visiting supporters were, according to the back-rower “off the wall again”.

“They turn up each and every time, spending a lot of money in this day and age and they do it every time. We can’t thank them enough.

“It’s mad. That place [The Shed] has a big reputation and to come out... we were only walking around at the start and there were chants of ‘Munster’ and the whole lot going on, it was bizarre but we can’t thank them enough.”