Graham Rowntree: 'It’s been a productive area for us the last couple of seasons has Cape Town'
SOUTH AFRICA RESET: Munster head coach Graham Rowntree is looking forward to extra time with players on and off the pitch on South Africa mini tour. Picture: Sam Barnes/Sportsfile
For the third season in a row, Munster will head to South Africa on Monday in need of an upturn in fortunes following a sobering defeat. Yet the frustration that will follow Graham Rowntree onto the plane to Cape Town ahead of this Saturday’s renewal of hostilities with the Stormers comes from a squad he knows should be playing much better than the performance they delivered in this Croke Park defeat to dominant derby rivals Leinster.
The curiously passionless atmosphere through the second period in a URC record crowd of 80,468 on Saturday evening told its own story. For all Munster’s efforts to prove otherwise, they were steamrollered by a ruthless first-half masterclass from their still unbeaten opponents.
While Munster continually let themselves down by failing to deliver on the excellent try-scoring opportunities they were creating, Leinster were clinical, racing into a three-try, 21-0 lead inside the first quarter-hour through James Lowe, captain Caelan Doris and Hugo Keenan and then collecting their try bonus point just before the interval.
That the dagger blow was dispatched by former Munsterman RG Snyman only intensified the anguish for the travelling support as they stared into a 26-5 interval deficit, their hopes dashed by a misfiring lineout, inaccurate passing and a disallowed try from Calvin Nash after referee Chris Busby deemed the final pass to the right wing from Alex Nankivell to have been forward, without seeing the need to review it with the Television Match Official and in spite of the protests of Munster captain Tadhg Beirne.
“I thought I’d scored to be honest,” Nash said of a moment on 25 minutes. “When I saw that he said it was forward I couldn’t believe it, I thought it was a definitely a try but look, it is what it is… Look, we’re past it now so can’t change it.”
“Ifs and buts,” Rowntree added, a comment that could apply to the entire 80 minutes from Munster’s point of view.
The head coach did see his side register a try in each half, the first from Emerging Ireland wing Seán O’Brien on 34 minutes after a well-worked move at the tail of a five-metre lineout, and the second in the 65th as full-back Mike Haley won a footrace to get on the end of a kick ahead from Gavin Coombes after good work in midfield from Tom Farrell.
Yet Munster never applied the required pressure to knock this impressive Leinster team out of their stride or prevent a third league defeat in a row to them since claiming a URC semi-final victory at Aviva Stadium 17 months ago.
Then in his first campaign as head coach, Rowntree had taken his squad back to South Africa following a 50-35 Champions Cup Round of 16 hammering at the Sharks and beaten the Stormers to qualify for the play-offs, the first of a five-game unbeaten run on the road that would lead to knockout wins in Glasgow, Dublin and the title secured in Cape Town.
Last season the defending champions claimed top spot in the final league table after rebounding from another sorry European knockout exit at Northampton Saints to win at altitude over the Bulls and Lions in Pretoria and Johannesburg. Which gives this trip south of the Equator the promise of similar lift-off to a campaign that has so far produced only one convincing performance in four rounds, the 23-0 win over Ospreys in round three.
No wonder Rowntree is looking forward to this two-game tour, eyeing a chance to make the most of added time together on and off the training field.
“Yeah, it is, and we’ve got guys coming back as well from injury, the likes of Shane Daly, Billy Burns will be on the trip.
“It’s been a productive area for us the last couple of seasons has Cape Town… South Africa, and we predominantly stay in Cape Town, there’s a hotel there we use and we’ll be flying up to Durban the night before the game and we’ll stay in Cape Town as long as we can.
“It’s proven and we know the facilities, we get away as players and as coaches and we get on with it. The Stormers are travelling as well (following a 38-7 defeat in Edinburgh).
“We’ve got huge games now against two South African teams and I’m a strong believer that if you’re going to advance in this competition, what you do in South Africa is huge in terms of what you can acquire, points-wise.”
Rowntree insisted he was not going to panic after a shaky start to the season, which began with porous defending in the first two rounds, a win over Connacht and an embarrassing loss at Zebre. Yet he accepted this defeat to Leinster had exposed some worrying flaws.
“You play against the top teams, they make life hard. That frustrates me, and you go back to the lineout defence, they’ve a very good lineout defence going up in the air. It’s the moments when no-one goes up, or we don’t attend a breakdown when we should be or there’s a pass, a poor pass. They’re the things we need to iron out. That’s all we can get on with.
“I’ve never shied away from poor performances. Tonight for me, there wasn’t a lack of effort, it was accuracy. We’ll drive on.
“We get boys back next week, we get a lot of bodies back in November, we just drive on. We won’t sugar coat anything, we’ll have a strong review.
“There’s so many positives in that game, we’ll cling on to that and we’ll address the negatives.
“We spoke about that in the dressing room afterwards. We know how to beat this team. It wasn’t a lack of effort. I’m going to get that tattooed on my forehead.”
: H Keenan, L Turner, G Ringrose, J Osborne, J Lowe, C Frawley, J Gibson-Park; A Porter, L Barron, T Furlong, RG Snyman, James Ryan, J Conan, J van der Flier, C Doris (c).
: M Deegan for Conan (19), G McCarthy for Barron (h-t), R Baird for Snyman (50), T Clarkson for Baird (HIA 52), C Healy for Furlong (64),R Byrne for Turner (68), L McGrath for Gibson-Park (68)
: M Haley, C Nash, T Farrell, A Nankivell, S O’Brien, J Crowley, C Casey; J Loughman, N Scannell, S Archer, J Kleyn, T Beirne (c), J O’Donoghue, J Hodnett, G Coombes.
D Barron for Scannell (7-15 – HIA), K Ryan for Barron (15, HIA), Scannell for K Ryan 24), J Ryan for Loughman (10-24 – blood & 51), J Kleyn for Ahern (49), R Quinn for Coombes (55), G Coombes for Hodnett (57-69, HIA), C Murray for Casey (59), S McCarthy for O'Brien (61), K Ryan for J Ryan (74, HIA), T Butler for Farrell (74).
Chris Busby (IRFU).
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