Nash: Munster can't waste tour de force in South Africa

The enormity of Munster’s wins at Loftus Versfeld and Ellis Park has not been lost on Calvin Nash.

INTERPRO CLASH: Calvin Nash during Munster rugby squad training at University of Limerick in Limerick. Pic: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

Calvin Nash has warned the impact of Munster’s recent heroics at altitude in South Africa will be as thin as the air on the Highveld if the URC champions fail to finish the season in winning style.

Bonus-point victories against both the Bulls in Pretoria and the Lions in Johannesburg have lifted Munster to third place in the standings with three games of the regular season remaining and the play-offs looming.

They will welcome interprovincial rivals Connacht to Thomond Park tomorrow evening looking to extend their winning run to seven games against the last team to beat them in the league, in Galway on January 1. Yet with a top-two finish in their sights, second-placed Leinster just a point ahead of the men in red, Ireland wing Nash does not want his team to blow the opportunity of at least securing a home quarter-final by losing momentum in the closing rounds and slipping out of the top four.

"Definitely, we want to keep getting as many points and finish as high as we can,” Nash said. "It'd be nice to play in front of our fans, get a few home games in play-offs, so that's the goal.

"Our focus has to be on Connacht this weekend, it'll all be for nothing if we don't come away with points this weekend."

The enormity of Munster’s wins at Loftus Versfeld and Ellis Park has not been lost on Nash, who agreed that backing up their initial victory over the Bulls with a repeat performance against the Lions was a significant statement from the defending champions as next month’s play-offs approach.

"Yeah, I suppose getting 10 points in South Africa is not easy at all. Going to Loftus, we're the first European team to win there and that record speaks for itself.

"It's incredibly tough, but we just got it right over there. The coaches, the strength and conditioning lads looked after us and it was a 30-man job. It really was 30 lads giving it their all in training and even in recovery off the pitch.

"So, I feel like we did the tour very well and getting that 10 points will really stand to us if we keep on winning."

It has certainly instilled further belief within the Munster squad that a top-two finish is a realistic ambition with league leaders Glasgow Warriors just five points ahead.

"I don't see why we shouldn't believe it,” Nash said. “I feel like if we're on it we can beat any team, it all comes down to what way we're going to show up on Saturday and, as a collective, keep building each way.

"Whoever we play in the play-offs, focus on Connacht this weekend."

Nash, 26, played his first games for Munster in three months on that South African tour having being injured in the final game of Ireland’s successful Six Nations title defence against Scotland on March 16. Having played in all five games of the championship, it was a frutstrating experience being sidelined for the Champions Cup Round of 16 loss at Northampton Saints, although the upside of his absence and getting two weekends off for the European quarters and last Saturday’s semi-final is that the wing comes into the business end of the season fit and fresh and singularly focused on retaining the URC title.

"Literally, it was a really bad dead leg. I'd a bit of fluid in my leg then, so I had to get that drained and couldn't get it turned around quick enough to play in Northampton which was sickening enough.

“I was kind of mentally tired after the Six Nations. Camp is quite intense, you do get breaks here and there, but overall it is intense and you have a lot of work off the pitch, analysing teams and stuff.

"I was disappointed to pick up the knock to my leg, but that probably gave me another bit of a break so I'm kind of raring to go.

"I'm feeling quite good, they looked after us in South Africa. The games were quite tough, but we were well looked after."

Nash looks back on the New Year’s Day defeat to Connacht at Dexcom Stadium as something of a low point in Munster’s season but credits the squad and management for staying positive through those difficult times when the injury list kept growing and wins were hard to come by.

“If we get sucked into the negativity it just grows. I feel like camp is fairly positive at the moment, we're trying not to focus on the negative and just keep getting better.

"It's not like a stupid positivity, we're not falling in love with ourselves thinking we're the best team ever. We're not, let's be honest.

"We do have great belief in each other, we still have a lot to improve on and want to keep getting better all the time."

That belief is bolstered even further by the body of work that went into turning last season around with the blistering away form to end the regular season and through the knockout rounds that eventually delivered the URC title with a Grand Final win over the Stormers in Cape Town last May. Nash is not forgetting the value of that experience as Munster reach a similar juncture in the current campaign.

"The reference points, all those games we won away. They're all difficult venues, proper fortresses and looking back on that, if we have home games, why would we not be able to do that at home as well?

"So, that's the goal. Keep winning, hopefully get our home games in the play-offs and that starts at the weekend."