Evergreen Peter O'Mahony brings that old bite and bark on latest Munster return

The Corkman made his presence felt as the All Blacks XV came to town.

BACK TO BLACK: Munster interim head coach Ian Costello, left, with Peter O'Mahony after the match. Pic: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

Many is the man who has given a referee serious lip or daggers after a debated decision. Only Peter O’Mahony could pull off such a menacing glare in the seconds after his own team has been awarded a penalty in front of the opposition posts.

Munster’s meeting with an All Blacks XV was barely ten minutes old at Thomond Park on Saturday evening when Takehito Namekawa found himself on the wrong end of this silent standoff just outside the Kiwi 22.

The Japanese official’s arm had just been raised in Munster’s direction when O’Mahony made a motion that indicated a displeasure with a failure to punish a discretion moments earlier when a tourist had connected with what was perceived to be a high tackle.

Diarmuid Barron, Munster’s actual captain on the night, made the gentlest of attempts to redirect his flanker’s attention. O’Mahony wasn’t for turning. Barron’s light pull of his arm was waved away, the 35-year old’s eyes never once wavering from the source of his ire.

Welcome back, Pete!

Out of action with a hamstring injury since the round three URC game against the Ospreys, Munster’s talisman was fit in time to start here, and he made himself seen and heard time and again throughout his, pre-planned, 40 minutes on the pitch.

O’Mahony was a threat in the air and on the ground, and he stitched some moves together with ball in hand too, but it was his vocal chords that impacted most, not least on the stroke of half-time when the Munster maul was dragged to the ground just shy of the line.

It was O’Mahony who had claimed the lineout. O’Mahony whose roars towards Namekawa seemed to propel the referee into action in the form of a penalty try after a pregnant pause. Even better was the yellow shown to Isaia Walker-Lawrence for the infringement.

Few players have this force of personality and the Cork veteran could have hardly chosen a better time to return to the field after a week when Graham Rowntree exited the building and on the back of an opening URC bloc that brought four defeats in six games.

Munster, under the temporary stewardship here of head of operations Ian Costello, were pitting themselves against a talented mixum gatherum of Kiwis without 20 players due to injuries or international duties.

They needed all the impetus and drive they could get.

“We were delighted that Peter was available to us for the week and the medical advice advice was 40 minutes. When I told him he was coming off at half-time I was worried with his reaction but thankfully he took it calmly and concurred with medical advice.

“I thought he would make a scene but he didn’t,” Costello joked after. “I thought it would be a difficult conversation and I checked with the physio were we definitely taking him off and he said yes. So I had a quiet word with him.” 

His injection back into the ranks has come with magical properties before, of course. That this is a script we’ve been served up more than once doesn’t dilute how remarkable it is and how intrinsic he still is at an age when so many have already emptied their lockers.

It’s just over a year since O’Mahony parted with a Munster captaincy that he had carried for years, and not much more than a week since Andy Farrell that his Irish armband has been passed on permanently to Caelan Doris.

That line about old soldiers fading away? Not this guy.

There is something flabbergasting about the way he keeps on keeping on. His Ireland career looked to be entering its last lap a few years back when he was dropped for the November internationals, but he dug in and made himself impossible to ignore then too.

“I thought he was excellent,” said Costello. “I would have to watch the video to see the bits and bobs but Barnesey (Diarmuid Barron) captained the side and Peter’s leadership… It is hard to equate what they do on a big week like this and the leadership they show and how they make others around them feel.

“Sometimes you can pick a player and say he does X and Y but when you pick Peter there are four or five black shirts targeting him, which frees up four or five other guys, and it’s how he makes others feel around him that is probably one of the most impressive things about him.” 

The 40 minutes he expended here will put him back in the frame for a No.6 jersey that looks far from settled ahead of Ireland’s November opener against New Zealand’s Test squad in the Aviva Stadium next Friday.

Not that his evening here was contained to just the one half.

O’Mahony watched most of the second-half on his feet in front of a replacement’s bench that was never going to be big enough to contain his remonstrations for more refereeing decisions and celebrations of scores.

His season is only getting started.