Heaslip: If anyone can tame Toulon it’s Munster

Rob Penney claimed last Saturday that he would have preferred the two-hour drive to Dublin over the two-hour flight to France later this month, but Toulon in Marseille’s Stade Velodrome it will be for the Munster coach.

The province has narrated many a famous victory on the continent in the history of the Heineken Cup but the scale of their last trek to France under the competition’s current guise was laid bare at the Stade Felix Mayol on Sunday.

Toulon weren’t perfect against Leinster, yet still had something to spare against the three-time champions.

Matt O’Connor was fairly blunt in predicting another Toulon success in three weeks’ time.

Jamie Heaslip was more equivocal.

“You have got two teams, Munster with a lot of experience in the Heineken Cup, Toulon with a lot of recent experience in the Heineken Cup — defending champions — they know what it takes to win. Both teams know what it takes to win. Munster down [there] will have their work cut for them but I don’t doubt their ability to win.

“They showed against Toulouse what they are capable of. They were really, really efficient and were really accurate when they got into the 22, went through the phases andeventually got the gaps they needed.

“Against Toulon they are going to have to do the same thing. [Toulon] have some very good players in the backs and the forwards. They are a team with a lot of momentum and they have to shut that down first and then just hold onto the ball and go through the phases and when those little opportunities arise, the mismatches, off-loads or a missedtackle, then they have got to pounce on it.

“Munster are well capable but the flip side of that is Toulon are also capable of it.”

O’Connor insisted it was premature to speak of a possible Leinster decline on the back of their loss. The head coach instead made the claim that what Sunday’s defeat demonstrated most was the importance of claiming home berths in the last eight.

The venue for the semi-finals is, of course, a lottery and Heaslip differed from the Australian when it was put to him that the need to travel to the south of France was key in their downfall at the weekend. Munster may want to take note.

“We’ve gone away and we’ve won away. From the players’ point of view, yeah, you get that home support and all that but we weren’t afraid of coming here. We’ve gone away in quarter-finals, in big cauldron-type atmospheres and won but unfortunately we came here and [against] a team like Toulon, you have to be accurate.

“You can’t give them easy entries into the game or easy exits in their half as well and that is what we did at crucial times. It’s a little disappointing because usually we’re a very accurate and focused team but they put a lot of pressure on us and forced turnovers. Fair play to them they were the more accurate team when they had the ball.”

For Leinster, the loss was their heaviest in France since a 33-6 reversal in Toulouse in October 2007 and the scale of it confirms the conclusion the province has slipped back into the chasing pack.

“It’s not that we planned for it,” said Heaslip of the 15-point defeat. “You could argue [for] the last try the ball was kind of bouncing around and it got very loose and they took their score very well. We’re not happy with it. We have got to take them on the chin. We know what it takes to win this competition. [Sunday] simply wasn’t good enough from us and that is what happens at this level at this stage of the competition.”