Munster in no mood to halt URC march at Thomond

Fourth seeds Glasgow, however, will arrive at Thomond Park buoyed by the memory of their 38-26 league win on the same pitch in March 2023.

Sat, 15 Jun, 2024 - 06:38

Simon Lewis

Not limping but marching, Munster will stride confidently into Saturday night’s URC semi-final against Glasgow Warriors not only with the belief that comes from a 10-game winning streak but the knowledge that it was achieved the hard way.

Undefeated since January 1, with eight bonus points accrued from nine victories, top seeding has earned the champions home advantage and a potential 20,000-plus crowd at Thomond Park, providing the perfect backdrop for Graham Rowntree’s team to set about earning a return to the final 13 months on from the most unlikely of title triumphs.

Fifth seeds a season ago, Munster needed three knockout wins away from home, including a last-eight win at Glasgow’s Scotstoun, to lift their first trophy since 2011.

This time they have given themselves more than a fighting chance of a successful defence.

A well-managed and pragmatic 23-7 quarter-final victory on home soil over Ospreys eight days ago has brought them to this moment and it would be a wasted opportunity if they did not use their residency to further advantage in Limerick tonight.

Fourth seeds Glasgow, however, will arrive at Thomond Park buoyed by the memory of their 38-26 league win on the same pitch in March 2023, although that sobering defeat proved to be a defining moment in Munster’s season, as the head coach explained this week as he praised the impact defence coach Denis Leamy had on an end of season reboot and the mentality he has instilled off the ball.

“They would follow Denis off a cliff,” Rowntree said. “He's an excellent coach in terms of clarity, motivation and he keeps things simple.

“It is a mindset, but it's not as simple as that. Indeed, against this team when they beat us at Thomond last March, we changed and improved our defence in a major way, and that was on the back of Leams, he identified some problems in how we were doing things in defence and we learned a good lesson in that game, which stood to us in the quarter-final.

“If you think back to the quarter-final last year, the first 20 minutes, our goal-line stand, I think that won us the game. So we've got to be good again. It is a lot about mindset, but technically, you've got to be on it and that's what you do every day, and that's why I'm very lucky to have Denis, the coach that he is.”

Rowntree has every right to believe it will need a similarly strong defensive performance to stop this Warriors side whose head coach Franco Smith he greatly respects.

Glasgow are unchanged from their hard-fought 27-10 quarter-final victory over the Stormers at Scotstoun last Saturday while their visit to Cork last December saw them up their own maul game with all of their five tries scored through their lineout drive, albeit in 40-29 loss. Yet the Munster boss knows he has a group of players more than capable of hitting the heights.

“We finished top of the pile this year. They stuck in a game on Saturday against the Stormers and now they’re travelling with a hardened group and a bit of belief. We’re the receiving team. We’re on a 10-game bounce.

"We’ve won games in different conditions. Edinburgh, everything was being thrown at us at one point. Still got a bonus point. A good work-out against Richie (Murphy)’s Ulster team and then you saw what happened last week.

“So we’re battling through a lot of adversity. And we’re still growing. We’ve not been perfect. We get to a point we’re at home and they’re coming to us. It will be a hell of a game. That’s the difference between this and last year.

“We limped into Europe on April 22 and won it on May 27. A whirlwind. This is different, game by game, quarter-final, take your points. A semi-final against a gnarly Glasgow team coming here.”

Rowntree’s selection indicates he has more than enough gnarl in his own squad, with a cranky Alex Nankivell having passed fit after two games out with an ankle injury and return to the Munster midfield and a powerhouse bench of six forwards lying in wait for second-half impact.

The New Zealander is one of four changes from the XV which started against Ospreys with lock RG Snyman and No.8 Gavin Coombes reverting to the replacements, joining front rowers Diarmuid Barron, John Ryan and Oli Jager, and back-rower Alex Kendellen.

Fineen Wycherley comes in for Snyman while Jack O’Donoghue swaps places with Coombes. Nankivell starts at inside centre as Sean O’Brien moves to the bench to provide backline cover alongside Conor Murray while a back-three reshuffle sees Mike Haley in at full-back, Simon Zebo switch to the left wing and Shane Daly moves to the right in the absence of the injured Calvin Nash.

The seriousness of Nash’s “leg knock” is not yet known but thoughts of what lies ahead must wait, Munster will have to be right on the money in the here and now if there is to be a final to play for.

MUNSTER: M Haley; S Daly, A Frisch, A Nankivell, S Zebo; J Crowley, C Casey; J Loughman, N Scannell, S Archer; F Wycherley, T Beirne - captain; P O’Mahony, J Hodnett, J O’Donoghue.

Replacements: D Barron, J Ryan, O Jager, RG Snyman, G Coombes, C Murray, S O’Brien, A Kendellen.

GLASGOW WARRIORS: J McKay; S Cancelliere, H Jones, S Tuipulotu, K Steyn – captain; T Jordan, G Horne; J Bhatti, J Matthews, Z Fagerson; S Cummings, R Gray;M Fagerson, R Darge, J Dempsey.

Replacements: G Turner, O Kebble, M Walker, M Williamson, E Ferrie, H Venter, J Dobie, R Thompson.

Referee: Andrea Piardi (Italy)