Graham Rowntree excited by backline options after Belfast boost

"It’s a real luxury/headache for us as coaches when guys are playing that well in various positions," the Reds boss said after the Sunday evening win.

IMPRESSION: Malakai Fekitoa of Munster during the United Rugby Championship against Ulster. Picture: Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile

It was all but lost amid the late drama in Belfast on Sunday night but the lesser spotted Malakai Fekitoa put in a decent shift for 53 minutes of Munster’s BKT URC win away to Ulster.

The former All Black hasn’t had the start he wanted to life with the province since his summer arrival, and you wouldn’t risk correction by pointing out that it was his replacement Ben Healy who stole the win with the clock in the red.

The run at the Kingspan was Fekitoa’s first since a cameo role against the South African ‘A’ side in early November and his previous half-dozen starts hadn’t delivered anything like the oomph and aahs hoped for.

There could have been any number of reasons for that.

The new man was operating in a side that had to start the season without key Irish internationals and as part of a squad that was only learning to walk under a new management adopting a very different stride.

The player also spoke last month about other challenges: the fundraising effort he launched after the tsunami that had hit his Tongan homeland, the arrival of a first child, and the adaptations that come with moving to a new club and a new country.

On Sunday evening he wore the No.12 jersey with Antoine Frisch, whose first season has gone significantly better so far, outside him in the midfield and with Jack Crowley on the other shoulder as the starting out-half.

Munster did nothing with the ball in the opening half, their advantage in possession at the end of 40 minutes neutered by a stat that showed they had just 31% territory after a half-hour and the need to exit their own third with the boot time and again.

If the difference after the break was obvious then Fekitoa did enough in the moments when he saw the ball to suggest that he could yet be a key part of the jigsaw as the side looks to master attack coach Mike Prendergast’s more expansive directions.

You don’t win 24 caps and win a World Cup medal with the All Blacks without being a superb operator but the 30-year old has stiff competition in working his way into the heart of this Munster back line yet.

Crowley is putting pressure on Joey Carbery for the No.10 jersey while showing his versatility elsewhere and Healy’s match-winning, ten-point haul was a timely reminder of his talents at a point when Scotland are said to be offering alternative lodgings.

Plenty of food for thought there for Graham Rowntree - who also has the likes of Rory Scannell, Dan Goggins and Liam Coombes – but Crowley’s ‘have tools, will travel’ CV is clearly the type of offering that excites the Munster head coach.

“Given we had to rest some guys over this period and we were going to change things up, looking at different combinations, it’s a real luxury/headache for us as coaches when guys are playing that well in various positions.

“Jack in particular who has played 10, 12 and 15 for us this season. It was great to see Malakai, he’s not played a lot of rugby, but I thought he was very good. But the ability to move Jack along one slot and bring Ben on is a real luxury for me.” 

If it’s a luxury then it’s one that those teams striving to be the best can ill afford to do without as rugby moves towards a point where multi-faceted operators are becoming less of a curiosity and more of a feature.

Leinster, as is so often the case, offer a glimpse into this reality. Andrew Porter and Cian Healy have been leapfrogging across the front row, Ryan Baird is flitting between the second and back rows and a whole host of names are migrating across the back line.

Jimmy O’Brien and Jamie Osborne have been picking up cheques across three different departments, Ciaran Frawley continues to offer options at ten and 12 while even Garry Ringrose has been deputised to the wing.

This transfer of skills and responsibilities should feed into Munster’s desire to play a more rounded attacking game that can only work when every player is comfortable with the more fluid and organic approach they are targeting.

That ethos was emphasised after the game in Kingspan when Rowntree was offered the chance to praise Munster’s grit in staying in the fight when 9-0 and 14-5 down and instead turned the conversation in an entirely different direction.

“That’s Munster, that’s our DNA. That’s what we work on day in and day our but for me the most pleasing thing is our attack and the way we are challenging teams, moving the ball, the speed of our ruck is really coming out in our game.

“We have changed our training a lot. We are training at a really high intensity and it is coming out and our technical ability, skill under pressure and fatigue is so much better than it has been ever.”