Munster better connected and more cohesive after away day adventures
COVETED: Munster captain Peter O’Mahony and head coach Graham Rowntree speaking during a press conference alongside the URC trophy. Pic: INPHO/James Crombie
It will not be a video clip that fires up Munster in their BKT URC Grand Final against the Stormers on Saturday evening, Graham Rowntree is sure of that.
The Munster boss insisted on Friday that his squad had not travelled from one end of the earth to the other just to get riled up by the leaked video of their opponents celebrating Leinster’s knockout blow from the boot of Jack Crowley in the semi-final 14 days ago. Instead it is that journey to Cape Town and the five previous away games on the road that have propelled their progress to this sold-out DHL Stadium decider, which will provide all the motivation necessary in the province’s efforts to end an 11-year trophy drought.
By the time Munster arrive home for the final time this season and unpack the bags they dream will contain winners’ medals, they will have travelled in the region of 100,000 kilometres to get to this seminal moment for the province.
It has been far from easy. From the shambles of back-to-back defeats to Glasgow, in their last home game on March 25, and a Champions Cup hammering by the Sharks in Durban a week later, they have turned their season around with a win at the Stormers and a come-from-behind draw back at the Sharks before knockout wins at Glasgow and Leinster and no perceived slight was required.
“They’re delighted not to be travelling back up to Dublin, aren’t they? You can’t blame them,” Rowntree said of the video following his pre-match media conference at DHL Stadium. “I’ve not really used it that much. You can’t get hyped up like that, it’s a distraction.
“The big word (Peter O’Mahony) uses a lot and he’s right, be calm. That’s one thing we’ve done well under pressure, we’ve been calm and making good decisions. Look at Crowley, calm, body language, everything, just calm.
“You can’t be entering a game all wired up because of a social media post. No, it’s not something that we’ve used to fuel the team. The game’s about more than that.
“They’re a brilliant team and they’re at home but we’ve been away from home plenty. It’s our sixth game away from home on the trot, when’s that been done before?
“We’ll have done 100km travelling when we get back to Limerick on Monday. That’s motivation for us: adversity on the road. The group’s tight, we’ve not had the ability to rotate the squad massively. It’s insane, look at Jean Kleyn, the amount of minutes he’s played this year, the same guys are trotting out, doing a job for us. That’s all we worry about, just growing our game.”
Rowntree’s opposite number John Dobson defended the Stormers’ jubilant reaction to Leinster’s defeat but regretted it had been posted on social media, particularly the potentially inflammatory words of hooker Joseph Dweba when he learned their final will be at home against Munster and not Leinster in Dublin.
“I don't think there's one rugby team in the world who wouldn't have reacted like we did. But it was genuinely a celebration,” Dobson said.
“Anybody who sees it as a slight against Munster is completely wrong… We've never beaten Munster. We got a hiding in Limerick (last season), and they ended our 21 or 22 game winning record here. So we're not going to celebrate playing Munster, they have British and Irish Lions, RG Snyman is one of the best players in the world.”
Dobson will have been surprised not to see Snyman starting but Rowntree now has an almost completely fit squad to select from and having the giant World Cup-winning lock on the bench can only be a strength.
After starting life under the new coaching ticket with five defeats in their first seven games, the boss painted a picture to his squad of a season ahead of cup finals. Their seven-week road trip has been the icing on the cake for Rowntree and his squad, and not just in the air miles accrued. Munster will go into this final better connected, more cohesive and undoubtedly battle-hardened by their criss-crossing of the Equator and no-one can say they do not deserve to be here, still fighting on the last day of the campaign.
That is a testament to Rowntree and his assistants, to captain O’Mahony and his team. They could not be in a better place to seal the deal, although one almighty challenge still awaits, as the head coach acknowledged.
“We’ve been playing knockout rugby for more than a month. When we were last down here we were trying to get into Europe, the next thing you know we’re in a quarter-final. Then, we’re in a semi. We’re in a final!
“We keep building, they’re growing our game, the lads, but they’re not happy and our coaches, Mike Prendergast, Andi (Kyriacou), Leams (Denis Leamy), they’re like, ‘we’ve got to be better lads’. Pushing our game.
“We’ve got to be at our best tomorrow. We’ve got to score tries, they will score tries, we’ve got to try and limit that. They’re a brilliant team, we’ll be at our best and if that’s not good enough, fair enough.”
D Willemse; A Davids, R Nel, D du Plessis, L Zas; M Libbock, H Jantjies; S Kitshoff - captain, J Dweba, F Malherbe; R van Heerden, M Orie; D Fourie, H Dayimani, E Roos.
JJ Kotze, A Vermaak, N Fouche, B-J Dixon, W Engelbrecht, M Theunissen, P de Wet, C Blommetjies.
M Haley; C Nash, A Frisch, M Fekitoa, S Daly; J Crowley, C Murray; J Loughman, D Barron, S Archer; J Kleyn, T Beirne; P O'Mahony - captain, J Hodnett, G Coombes.
N Scannell, J Wycherley, R Salanoa, RG Snyman, A Kendellen, C Casey, B Healy, K Earls.
A Piardi (Italy).
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