Van Graan: I told Joey Carbery 'you're a special player, lead us through today'

Sat, 16 Apr, 2022 - 18:47

Simon Lewis, Thomond Park

Johann van Graan praised difference-makers Peter O’Mahony and Joey Carbery after they steered Munster into the Heineken Champions Cup quarter-finals with a memorable aggregate victory over 2020 winners Exeter Chiefs.

Head coach van Graan, who departs at the end of the season to take up a similar role in England with Bath, had recalled both skipper O’Mahony and fly-half Carbery to the Munster starting line-up after they had missed the first leg of this Round of 16 tie in Exeter last Saturday due to injury.

Munster came from 13-8 down after that first leg at Sandy Park to score a 26-10 second-leg victory seven days later to win this Round of 16 tie 34-23 on aggregate and set up an away trip on the weekend of May 6-8 to the winner of Saturday’s night clash in Belfast between Ulster and Toulouse.

O’Mahony led with a captain’s performance as Munster dominated the breakdown battle while Carbery scored 21 of his side’s points, with their opening try, two conversions and four penalties in an error-free goal-kicking performance.

A try in each half, the first from Carbery, the second from Damian de Allende, was matched by Exeter through scores from Sam Maunders and Jaques Vermeulen but Carbery’s goal-kicking proved the difference on the scoreboard, offering a stark contrast to opposing fly-half Joe Simmonds’ struggles off the tee in a swirling Limerick wind as the Chiefs number 10 missed all three of his shots at the posts.

It marked Carbery’s best performance in a Munster jersey since returning from a serious ankle injury last spring and van Graan said: “Joey is a special player.

“This week I said to him, that when I met him a few years ago I had so much belief in him. He's such a special player, and I said to him 'today is the day to lead us through'. He certainly responded, not only with his kicking, but the try he scored. He's a phenomenal man, he's been through a lot, but he's led us to victory from a 10 perspective.”

Munster’s victory means they have reached the last eight for the 19th time and it was thanks to a stirring team performance in front of 21,133 supporters, that despite not being a sell-out crowd still generated one of those special Thomond Park atmospheres for a European game.

O’Mahony led by example as Munster executed seven unanswered turnovers in the opening 40 minutes with No.8 Jack O’Donoghue running his captain close for the man of the match honours. Yet there was no arguing with the destination of the award, O’Mahony regularly making telling interventions at the breakdown despite receiving running repairs on his shoulder from early in the game and even throwing the killer pass from the back of a ruck to set up Carbery for his try.

“Pete's a man for the big moments and that's why you back your captain to come through in big European games, and we targeted this one,” van Graan said.

“We knew that we needed to stay in the fight last week, which we certainly did. Last week they were over the try-line four times and we scrambled, and that five-point deficit, we knew that we needed to claw that back.

“I thought that we started the game pretty well and then came back into it, but from Pete's point of view, that's what you want your captain to do on the big days, perform like that.”

Chiefs director of rugby Rob Baxter made a point of referencing his fly-half Simmonds’ bad day at the office.

“If that had been a 50-50 kicking battle we would have been in it to the death,” Baxter said.

“Munster were where they needed to be and we weren’t. That’s great credit to Munster and their crowd. The emotion they created together I thought was fantastic for them but we needed to be better.

“We weren’t confrontational enough or effective enough in enough areas.”