More misery as rueful Munster left reeling on the ropes
There may have been an improvement in terms of performance from the province as they went down fighting at Welford Road last night but the eventual outcome nevertheless leaves Munster’s backs against the wall in this Champions Cup pool with three games still to play.
Home and away losses to Leicester Tigers without even the comfort of a losing bonus point have left Foley’s side hanging by their fingertips with another back-to-back series coming in Janaury against Stade Francais before a final round trip to Treviso.
There are still 15 points available to them but Leicester will return to domestic duties in England safe in the knowledge that they are already 13 points clear of the Irish side and eight ahead of Stade with a home game against the Italians to come next in round five.
Munster simply have to win in Paris in their rearranged round two fixture or their final two games will be meaningless. And with Pro12 derbies at home to Leinster and then at Ulster over Christmas and New Year, a further extension of this miserable and now record-equalling losing run of four matches will see the league campaign close to tatters as well.
Foley, though, is convinced the corner is close to being turned and buoyed by the greater cohesion his team displayed for periods of the game last night if not the continuing failure to hold on to the ball when it mattered most. Which made this loss extremely frustrating for a head coach who hopes to have his initial two-year contract extended into a third next summer.
“When you’re dealing with a young group as I said to them inside there, a group like that will excite but it will also disappoint you, because they’ve got to learn,” Foley said.
“Tonight they’ll learn that you can create opportunity but if you don’t look after the ball in the final moments of the game against good opposition you’re not going to get the opportunities, and we turned over big momentum swings today; turning over the ball the way we did.
“It undoes a lot of the good work. I thought John Ryan was excellent. At tight-head, his first start, up against (Marcos) Ayerza. He had international props in front of him, and against a Leicester pack in Welford Road. I thought himself, Jamesy (Cronin) and Mike (Sherry) as a front-row did a lot of good work today. I thought there was a lot of outstanding performances out there but if you don’t score it’s very hard to win a game.”
“What have we, three games left? The Stade away game now becomes, in this competition, massively important.
“It is (must win), yeah. It is. We have to go over there and do a job. It’s a hard place to go. We have to dig in. We have to create an understanding around the little finer points of it.”
Munster, as Foley explained, were yet again the masters of their own downfall, conceding 18 turnovers and also failing to score any points during the first 10 minutes of the second half when Leicester were reduced to 14 men following the sin-binning of substitute forward Dom Barrow for a cynical pull on Conor Murray.
They had the opportunity to score, but fly-half Ian Keatley once again failed to deliver off the tee with a penalty, this time from a more difficult kick than the howler he missed last week from in front of the posts.
It was Keatley’s second miss from four attempts having topped and tailed the opening half with successful penalties either side of an Ed Slater try converted by Freddie Burns.
And even that also had input from the luckless Keatley, whose high tackle borne of defensive panic on the fast-breaking Telusa Veainu led to a penlaty from which Leicester exerted telling pressure for their captain to crash over in the 22nd minute.
The Munster number 10 did keep his side in the hunt at 10-6 with a penalty on the stroke of half time but they were the final points the men in red would muster, Niki Goneva putting the game beyond reach in the 65th minute after a fine break and offload from centre Peter Betham.
That it was decisive will annoy Munster intensely given it came three minutes after the visitors had a wonderful opportunity to go ahead when the scores were still 10-6, the lively Francis Saili turning defence into attack with a scintillating break from his own 22 to inside the Tigers’. He had Simon Zebo and Keith Earls on his shoulder and should have been able to pass to the latter had Earls not been dragged back by his collar by the chasing Veainu. Remarkably the crime went unpunished, Saili had only Zebo on his inside to reach and Leicester were able to pounce and win a penalty at the breakdown.
Munster were not without some impressive moments of ball ownership but those turnovers came back to bite them time and time again.
Foley added: “I think if you take the scoreline out of it you’re seeing a team play with a lot of ambition, trying to do the right things but unfortunately getting turned over at times and not understanding the use of the ball, we’re not a million miles away, it’ll take a bounce of a ball to go our way. I thought it did tonight with the Frankie (Saili) break.
“I thought that was a massive shift in the game but it was like see-saw, it went our way, their way. It’s about making sure that when momentum goes our way that we’re more ruthless with it.”
Tries: Slater, Goneva. Cons: F. Burns 2. Pens: F. Burns.
T Veainu; A Thompstone, P Betham, M Smith, V Goneva (S Bai, 73); F Burns (T Bell, 66), B Youngs (S Harrison, 76); M Ayerza (M Aguero, 44-49 & 71), T Youngs (H Thacker, 72), D Cole (F Balmain, 58); M Fitzgerald (T Croft, 52), G Kitchener (D Barrow, 36); E Slater – captain, B O’Connor, L McCaffrey.
Pens: Keatley 2.
A Conway; K Earls, F Saili, D Hurley (L G Amorosino, 75), S Zebo; I Keatley (R Scannell, 66), C Murray (T O’Leary, 60); J Cronin (D Kilcoyne, 66), M Sherry (N Scannell, 69), J Ryan (M Sagario, 75); M Chisholm (B Holland, 69), D Foley; R Copeland, D O’Callaghan (J O’Donoghue, 52), CJ Stander - captain.
Jerome Garces (France)
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