Munster lineout is misfiring and opposition know it

After five rounds of the current URC season, Munster have the weakest lineout in the competition at 79%.

Jack O'Donoghue of Munster takes possession in a lineout against Leinster at Croke Park. Pic: Seb Daly/Sportsfile

“No scrum no win, how fitting!” exclaimed massage therapist Paul McMahon as he opened the door to his practice and saw my hoodie. 'No Scrum No Win' is a rugby-themed clothing brand from France and that hoodie was one of approximately three pieces of free clobber I got during my playing career. In hindsight, it probably wasn’t the best thing to be wearing around Limerick that day.

It was Monday, January 19th, 2015. We were still licking our wounds after being hammered by Saracens two days earlier at Allianz Park, sending us out of the European Cup at the pool stages for only the second time since 1998. While virtually everything went wrong for us that day, our obliteration at scrum time was particularly rough.