Varley: Players should worry after Ulster debacle

Munster’s underperforming players should be afraid for their places ahead of Friday night’s RaboDirect Pro12 semi-final in Glasgow, says stand-in captain, Damien Varley.

Rob Penney’s side tuned up for the league play-offs in the worst possible fashion at Thomond Park on Saturday night, as they crashed to a 19-17 defeat to a second-string Ulster, turning in their worst performance of the season.

It led head coach Penney to imply there could be changes to his line-up after a side close to full-strength were humbled on home turf in his final home game before departing for Japan at the end of the season.

Varley found no reason to argue with that assessment as they head into a short turnaround before the trip to Scotstoun. “I think players should always be fearful for their places, after a performance like that,” hooker Varley said.

“Everyone of us needs to look at ourselves and hold our hands up for that type of performance which is completely unacceptable in a Munster jersey.”

A repeat of the handling errors, poor passing and questionable decision-making displayed against Ulster will surely be punished more emphatically by a Glasgow side which rounded off its regular season campaign with a 55-0 trouncing of Zebre and scored a morale-boosting win in Limerick last month.

Varley had no problem installing the Scots as favourites.

“Absolutely,” he said. “They embarrassed us here at Thomond Park not so long ago. I suppose we had a narrow victory over them earlier on in the year over there. It is going to be a huge game. They put 55 points up on Zebre. I think they will put 55 points up on us if we turn up and play similarly as we did [on Saturday].

“It is going to be a long week for us. I think we have a lot of work to do, a lot of preparations because it is going to be an extremely tough task. We try and set our standards in European rugby, but I think this fixture next week is certainly as big a task and challenge as we have come across all year.”

Varley rejected the assertion that the Munster squad was still suffering a hangover from the Heineken Cup semi-final defeat to Toulon in Marseille on April 27.

“I wouldn’t say there is a worry that it is clouding our performance. It is still upsetting. There is a Heineken Cup final on in two weeks’ time. We would love to be part of it, but we are not. We have to get on with it. We had a great win last weekend in Edinburgh and it is hugely disappointing that we turn up this weekend and play utter shit.”

Of the performance on a wet and windy evening that provoked such a blunt description, Varley said: “I think we should have been more direct and we forced it. Given the conditions and a terrible night, we didn’t adapt well enough to it. We compounded our mistakes throughout the night. That just never gave us the momentum. We could never get on the front foot. When we were throwing passes, we were throwing them behind each other. We were not as accurate as we should be and as we are capable of.”