Hanrahan injury gives Penney H-Cup headache

Munster 5 Glasgow Warriors 22

While his immediate concern will be Munster’s lack-lustre approach to the tactical and confrontational fronts, the nature of Hanrahan’s injury can be notoriously difficult to resolve quickly.

“All groins injuries are serious, how serious I don’t know,” Penney said on Saturday night. “We will have to wait until Monday when the scan comes through, but they’re always challenging. I’ve never known a miracle groin repair to happen.”

Although BJ Botha joined Hanrahan in sick bay, it appears the ankle injury sustained by the South African is of little concern to the coach.

This game was a complete opposite of last week’s where they were so accurate in the Heineken Cup victory over Toulouse. They were on the back foot in virtually every facet of play against a fired-up Glasgow Warriors side that appeared to have had more to play for.

The comprehensive defeat puts Munster in a vulnerable position to qualify for the knockout stages of this RaboDirect Pro12. At the very least they are in serious danger of relinquishing a home semi-final and the financial bonanza that would go with that.

And Penney deemed the performance and defeat as unacceptable.

“Our mental preparation was poor. It was very disappointing. We, as a coaching group, a management group and as a team pride ourselves on top shelf performances and that certainly was not one.

“Nothing between here and the end of the season physically, tactically, technically is going to change amongst the group. It is all about how you prepare mentally and we were off the pace today and that was highly evident by our defence and our lack of work ethic on attack. They got a bit of a blast at half-time, but the game was lost by that stage. Credit to the lads, they did a much better effort in the second half, but it is not acceptable.”

Long before the end of a scoreless second half, with Glasgow leading 22-5 from the break, the fans that had been so enthusiastic after last week, were drifting away into the night.

Glasgow played all the accurate rugby and produced three tries to one to hammer home an advantage Munster could hardly have expected before the kick off.

The couple of hundred brave Glasgow souls were singing long before the finish with the Munster fans stunned into silence and, notwithstanding the fact this will hardly be the same team travelling to Toulon for the Heineken Cup semi-final on April 27, the current European champions won’t be shivering in their boots.

They had their opportunities but invariably blew them, lost the battle in the contact areas and all too often provided Glasgow with predictable targets to snuff out any threat of making possession pay.

Glasgow stormed into a 10-0 lead through a try from Jonny Gray, a conversion and penalty from Duncan Weir.

James Coughlan was denied a try by a stray Glasgow foot on 16 minutes but Simon Zebo’s magnificent break through the centre of the pitch paved the way for a CJ Stander try two minutes later.

Just when you expected Munster to grow into the game, Glasgow got in for another try from Sean Maitland after Zebo missed a glaring tackle 30m out. They added to that 25th-minute try with a third try four minutes before the break from Josh Strauss and Weir kicked the conversion to push the lead out to 22-5.

It didn’t get better quickly for Munster, who were lucky not to concede another try after 49 minutes, as Glasgow continued to be the more proactive of the two teams. Munster had their share of possession but were bereft of ideas throughout, with Glasgow comfortably defending their lead rather than struggling to hold it.

MUNSTER: F Jones, G van den Heever, K Earls, J Downey, S Zebo, JJ Hanrahan, C Murray, J Ryan, D Casey, BJ Botha, D O’Callaghan, D Foley, CJ Stander, J Coughlan (capt), S Dougall.

Replacements: I Keatley for Hanrahan (inj, 21), J Murphy for Van den Heever (62), D Kilcoyne for Ryan (64), Billy Holland for O’Callaghan, Q McDonald for Casey, D Williams for Murray, P Butler for Dougall, J Ryan for Botha (all 70).

GLASGOW: P Murchie, S Maitland, A Dunbar, F Russell, T Seymour, D Weir, C Cusiter (capt), G Reid, D Hall, J Selsh, T Swinson. J Gray, J Strauss, R Wilson, C Fusaro.

Replacements: G Cross for Welsh (54), L Nakawawa for Swinson (60), R Harley for Fusari (61),R Vernon for Dunbar (62), J Yanuyanutawa for Reid (66), P Horne for Murchie (71), H Pyrgos for Cusiter (72).

Referee: N Owens (Wales).