Now it’s time for Munster to stand up and fight
As he tries to a figure out a way to rebound from this physically and mentally bruising defeat, the first to a French side at Thomond Park in 19 seasons of campaigning in Europe, Foley must ensure his players cast out whatever afflicted them on Saturday in Limerick and contributed to a shockingly poor performance against a high-intensity Clermont Auvergne side.
He needs them to regroup quickly and focus on what it will take to do what no team in Europe since Sale Sharks in 2008 has managed — win at Stade Marcel Michelin.
Judging by the weekend’s effort on a dirty night in front of a packed house, when Munster were back-pedalling from kick off, conceding a maul try finished by Fritz Lee with just 56 seconds on the clock to a fired up Clermont, their chance to inflict any sort of damage has been missed. You felt if Munster were to make any sort of an impression in France next weekend in the away leg of this Champions Cup pool double header they needed first to do a job on home soil. The losing bonus point only a tiny crumb of comfort on a night when little went right.
It left Foley with plenty to ponder as to how his players turn this campaign around because a defeat next weekend could spell curtains for a side that reached the Heineken Cup semi-finals in the last two seasons.
Matching Clermont’s physicality and intensity will be the first priority after Munster were outfought at the breakdown, their half-backs hustled and harried and left unable to deliver quick, clean ball. They were not helped by referee Wayne Barnes’ laissez-faire approach to Clermont’s defence of the gainline, which featured some cynical targeting of Peter O’Mahony, the home captain receiving a flurry of punches on the deck from the otherwise impressive Lee in the opening 10 minutes and then soon after the break being poleaxed by a clinical late hit from second-row Jamie Cudmore.
Even by fair means, Munster got roughed up good and proper by a street-smart side marshalled by former Leinster forwards coach Jono Gibbes. “There was a lot of pressure on the scrum, on lineouts, at every breakdown,” the Munster boss said. “There were hands and feet going in. If you’re a Clermont coach, you’re going ‘good job’. If you’re a Munster coach, you’re going ‘we need cleaner ball’. We need to be going forward, presenting that ball and making sure we can play off it.
“We took on Saracens here, we’ve taken on Leinster in the Aviva. We’ve done it against other teams. You can take things in isolation, that’s fine, but when you look at things over a period of time, what went right for us in the past, when we were sharper and used our ball better, we didn’t do that today. We coughed up ball when we had them in corners. Any ball that bounced, they got it and made hay with that. We lost the physical battle because they were on the front foot. We need to turn that around.”
The rampaging Wesley Fofana had cut Munster’s midfield to ribbons and he added to Lee’s try in the same corner on 20 minutes. Were it not for two missed conversions from Camille Lopez either side of an Ian Keatley penalty, Clermont might have been disappearing from view by half time. Instead they held a 16-6 lead, France fly-half Lopez finding his range with a penalty on the half hour before brilliantly executing a long-range drop goal six minutes before the interval.
There was hope for Munster but, while they improved in the second-half, it was not nearly enough to knock Clermont off their stride. Nor was it for the lack of trying but the error count continued to climb, not least the wasting of a number of good lineout platforms through dropped balls in the maul and while Munster’s backline was just as willing it could not find a way through.
Even as they lay siege to the Clermont line in the dying minutes, having kept the French side scoreless since the 33rd minute to trail by seven points after Keatley’s third penalty, a converted try to rescue the match seemed unlikely and the ultimate insult came as the clock ticked past 79:55 and Duncan Casey launched a last-ditch lineout throw five metres out only to see it snaffled in front of Paul O’Connell by the exceptional Damien Chouly.
The final whistle followed and with it a first premier European competition loss at Thomond Park since Leicester Tigers did the unthinkable there in 2007. Munster, then defending Heineken Cup champions, had already qualified for the knockout stages before that final pool game but with trips this time around to Clermont and then to Saracens in round five, losing this one was not a luxury this side could afford. Foley has no choice but to think positively and he said: “We went into this thinking it was a 160-minute game. We’re at half-time now and we need to see where the first-half has gone wrong for us. We’re 4-1 down (in pool points) and we need to win this tie. We need to make sure we go over there and give a performance that’s worthy of the jersey.
“It’s an unbelievably hard place to go. I’ve played there a couple of times. The crowd will be in behind them, similar to what you expect when you come to Thomond Park as an away side. Our crowd was in the game today but unfortunately we couldn’t aid them in getting a better performance out of ourselves.
“We know the way that they went about going after us. We need to sit down and study how we’d like to go after them. Unfortunately for us we didn’t show a whole pile out there. We need to make sure we understand how important the ball is and then apply pressure on them.”
Munster’s fate was sealed in the first and last minutes, Clermont scoring a pushover try from the kick-off through Fritz Lee and then denying the home side at the death with a lineout steal five metres in front of their line.
If there could be one thing worse than losing an unbeaten home record against French sides, it is having to go to France eight days later to make amends. And of all places, Stade Marcel Michelin. Munster have more than a mountain to climb.
Fritz Lee put in a massive shift to earn the man of the match award, despite appearing to provoke a punch-up with Peter O’Mahony, but the No. 8 will have been run close by flanker and captain Damien Chouly, who capped a fine night by stealing the final lineout from Paul O’Connell.
Munster lost Dave Kilcoyne to an ankle problem that Anthony Foley suggested might also be a knee injury, while Gerhard van den Heever succumbed to a knee knock and both will be assessed as to their availability for next weekend. In the same boat are Robin Copeland (knee), Andrew Smith (knee) and Paddy Butler (hip), who all missed Saturday’s game.
Wayne Barnes did the hosts no favours, allowing Clermont to play right on the edge and beyond at the breakdown. While they outmuscled Munster, Barnes might have been a stricter enforcer of discipline, not least a late hit on O’Mahony by Jamie Cudmore, the Reds captain was also punched repeatedly by Lee earlier on. Both incidents may interest the citing commissioner. Penalties conceded: Munster: 5 Clermont: 10
Munster must now try and bring about a rare defeat for Clermont at Stade Marcel Michelin on Sunday.
MUNSTER: F Jones; G van den Heever (J Murphy, 58), P Howard, D Hurley, S Zebo; I Keatley, C Murray; D Kilcoyne (J Cronin, 13), D Casey, BJ Botha; P O’Connell, D Foley; P O’Mahony — captain, T O’Donnell, CJ Stander.
Replacements not used: K O’Byrne, S Archer, B Holland, S Dougall, D Williams, JJ Hanrahan.
CLERMONT: N Abendanon (J Davies, 61); N Nakaitaci, A Rougerie, W Fofana, N Nalaga (N Abendanon, 69); C Lopez, L Radoslavjevic; T Domingo (V Debaty, 65), B Kayser, C Ric (D Zirakashvili, 69); J Cudmore, S Vahaamahina; D Chouly – captain, J Bonnaire (A Lapandry, 61), F Lee.
Replacements not used: J Ulugia, J Pierre, T Lacrampe, B James.
Referee: Wayne Barnes (Eng).
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