Munster eyes turn back quickly to the big blue
Munster have earned the right to have their semi-final mettle examined yet again this Friday but they can have rarely booked their place in the last four of any competition in such strange circumstances as this victory over interprovincial rivals Connacht.
For the third season in succession, they must turn and face into the stiffest of challenges, against Leinster in Dublin having secured progress to the Guinness PRO14 last-four with an emphatic blow-out of 13-man Connacht at an empty Aviva Stadium.
Johann van Graan’s men will be back there after just four sleeps as they rejoin battle with the still-undefeated defending champions aiming for a third PRO14 title in a row but despite all the odds stacked in the favour of Leo Cullen’s side you cannot help but detect a quiet confidence in the Munster camp.
No doubt it will have been buoyed by a seven-try rout of the westerners yesterday, pre-empted by a bizarre first-half that saw referee Frank Murphy yellow card one Connacht man, award Munster a penalty try and then dismiss two more men in green before the half-time whistle while still having time to sin-bin Peter O’Mahony and Tadhg Beirne before disappearing down the tunnel for his interval cuppa.
Yet Munster have also drawn strength from their performance against Leinster the previous weekend when they asked several questions of Cullen’s team in the air and in defence before eventually succumbing 27-25 at the end of an entertaining and evenly-balanced contest on Irish rugby’s re-emergence from lockdown..
All of which will bring them and head coach van Graan back to the Aviva Friday night in the latest attempt to banish their last-four demons. For all the unspoken confidence, van Graan is in no danger of under-estimating the size of the challenge.
“You’ll have to be at your best to beat Leinster away. In the semi-final last season we said after the game that our discipline wasn’t good enough and that was because of pressure that they applied. So it will definitely be a pressure-cooker game. I think both sides have performed really well last week when they played each other.
“All parts of your game need to fire. You need to apply scoreboard pressure on them. In the semi-final two years ago, we were eight points behind with a few minutes left and we came within a point so I think the important thing is we learn from the past two semi finals and hopefully we can come and deliver a performance on Friday night.
“But you are playing a team who will be well rested and we have to come to their backyard again but look that’s something we set out at the beginning of the year, get to a semi final first and hopefully take the next step and what bigger challenge than Leinster away on a Friday night in the Aviva after we’ve played on Sunday. From our side looking at a great opportunity ahead of us.”
Whether there is anything in Munster’s locker to unleash that was kept under wraps nine days ago in their first meeting remains to be seen and van Graan dismissed the notion on the grounds of the short-turnaround between the Connacht game and the fast-approaching semi.
“They’re a quality side. We respect them a lot. They are not unbeaten for nothing, if you saw what they did last night. So look, from our side it will only be a mental change. We’ve only got literally 60 minutes of training on Tuesday and we need our bodies to recover so we’re only going to go with what we have and that’s the beauty of sport.
“We’ve got a challenge ahead of us, they’ll be firm favourites, unbeaten in the Aviva Stadium so all we can do is focus on ourselves and make sure we recover and then look forward to Friday night.
There will have been few with previous experience of yesterday’s bizarre opening half to fall back on for reference as referee Frank Murphy issued red cards to Connacht forwards Abraham Papali’i and Shane Delahunt, sin-binned three players, Munster’s Peter O’Mahony and Tadhg Beirne, and their former team-mate Conor Oliver, awarded 22 penalties and a penalty try.
It inevitably had an impact and left Connacht on the back foot from Oliver’s seventh-minute yellow, from which 14 points accrued to the Reds.
The red cards, both for dangerous high tackles, ended any hope of a contest, though the Munster yellows in first-half injury-time reduced the game to 13 v 13 for 10 minutes.
It was only a matter of when, not if, Munster would collect the try bonus point and that it was Beirne who managed the feat nine minutes into the second period was a poignant moment in a man of the match performance on the lock’s first game back since fracturing his ankle at Saracens last December.
For van Graan, it was also important given the loss of RG Snyman and Jean Kleyn to his second-row stocks eight days earlier.
"Tadhg really played well, I felt it was a good performance from him and Fineen (Wycherley) and Billy (Holland) coming on to close out the game. That's the good thing about a quality squad, you need a squad. It would have been great to have RG play with these guys but that's the landscape for the next few months. We're very happy with the performance of Tadhg and it's good that we've got three locks who have played really well."
Snyman’s fellow World Cup winner Damian de Allende was another who stood out in his second appearance since arriving during lockdown although he was withdrawn with eight minutes to go with Munster having used all their replacements after a bang on the cheek.
Asked if de Allende was a doubt to face Leinster, van Graan replied: “No, we just took him off the pitch. The game was won and we just tried to protect him.
“He hasn't played a lot of rugby. There's absolutely nothing wrong with him, we just said we'd finish the game off with 14 for the last 10 minutes."
Such luxuries, Munster will enjoy them while they can.
: S Daly; A Conway, C Farrell, D de Allende, K Earls; JJ Hanrahan (R Scannell, 57), C Murray (C Casey, 57); J Loughman (J Cronin, 48), N Scannell (K O’Byrne, 55), J Ryan (S Archer, 48); F Wycherley, T Beirne (B Holland, 62); P O’Mahony - captain (J O’Donoghue, 55), C Cloete, CJ Stander (J O’Sullivan, 59).
: O’Mahony 40-50, Beirne 40-50
T O’Halloran (B Aki, 24); C de Buitléar, S Arnold, T Daly, D KIlgallen (J Murphy, 40); C Fitzgerald (S Kerins, 62 - HIA), C Blade; P McAllister (M Burke, 59), S Delahunt, D Robertson-McCoy (C Kenny, 46) ; N Murray (U Dillane, 52), Q Roux - captain; E Masterson (S Masterson, 52), C Oliver, A Papali’i.
: Oliver 7-17
: Papli’i 25, Delahunt 35
C Dean.
: Frank Murphy (IRFU)
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