Anthony Foley says players must measure up to training efforts

Munster stand once more on Champions Cup brink, psychologically at least.

There may be 20 points still available to them in this disrupted Pool 4 campaign but head coach Anthony Foley is preparing his players for a game at Leicester’s Welford Road tomorrow they dare not lose. He is quite right.

A second defeat to the Tigers in eight days may not send Munster crashing out of Europe, they will still have three games left to play, with a back-to-back series against Stade Francais to negotiate in the new year followed by a trip to Treviso in round six.

Yet whatever the mathematical equations suggest is possible, a loss at Welford Road will have lasting repercussions for this Munster squad. They have managed to dig themselves into a hole by undoing a promising start to the season with three defeats in a row and a diminishing level of standards. A fourth would not only equal an unwanted record of successive losses it would send confidence in them and within the squad through the floor.

A year ago Munster lost at home to Clermont, just as they did to Leicester last Saturday night and failed to catch up in a terribly difficult pool. A losing bonus point at Stade Marcel Michelin was rescued by a nerveless last-minute penalty to cap a faultless kicking display from Ian Keatley (remember him?) but it simply piled the pressure on for the next game and in round five the province capitulated in north London to a ruthless Saracens side.

To their credit they rallied sufficiently to save their season by making a dashing run to the Pro12 final but this time around it is in Europe where the salvage work still needs to be done in order for Foley to avoid being the first Munster head coach to preside over back-to-back exits at the pool stage.

He will have had to come from a low starting point to get this outfit back on track following a dismal show at home to Leicester last weekend that for all Munster’s possession saw them sucker-punched with two quick tries before half-time and then clinically dispatched after it, undone by their own lack of ruthlessness in attack and equally sloppy execution in defence.

“We have gone through it. We have reviewed it. It is something that has crept into our game over the last three games,” Foley said. “You go back to the Dragons game, you go back to the Connacht game (the first loss in the run). There were opportunities in those games but we butchered them in that green zone area.

“We have talked about it again. We have looked at how we train, how we go about training, what standards we set upon ourselves in training.

“You are what you do at times. Sometimes you turn a blind eye to maybe one or two things being dropped in training because you don’t see the significance of it. We have to tidy up a lot of that and make sure it is taken out of our game.

“It’s everyone. It’s important as a group we look after the standards that are around the place, whether that’s the coaches, whether that’s the leaders, whether that’s the players. It has got to be everyone, and everyone has to be accountable for each other.” Foley admitted the search for improvement had led to players trying to force things with the result that even more mistakes were being made.

“There was an issue at times, but I’m of the view of make them make another tackle, make them make another decision, make them have to do something rather than trying to force something, particularly in games that are of a high importance. I thought at times we forced one or two things in the (Leicester) game. And we probably should have made another pass, worked another angle. We didn’t, they’re decisions you back your players to make, and at times we were a small bit loose. All we can do is address it. We have pointed it out, hopefully it is addressed and we become a bit more clinical.”

Can Munster flick the switch and rediscover the clinical nature of their game, one which, allied with sheer grit and determination, saw them eke out late wins earlier in the season against Ulster and Edinburgh as well as land the crucial bonus point with a fourth try against Champions Cup rivals Treviso with time against them.

It may be too much to expect judging on their last three performances that has heaped criticism on the squad and management these past seven days and left them, in Foley’s words, that “it is natural for everyone to feel the world’s against them.”

He added: “But then there is a lot of good characters in our group, and with that you know you have got to stand up and see where we are and see how we fronted up (on Monday). We had a good meeting , and good session (Tuesday). These guys haven’t backed away. The A side were exceptional at training. They brought everything up to a standard that forced the squad for next weekend to be accurate, with a very competitive session.” Munster supporters will be praying the outcome matches the effort.