Munster creating French 'desord' scenarios to prepare for Castres clash

CLINICAL EDGE: Munster Attack Coach Mike Prendergast believes Munster need to be better and take all chances in Castres 5m zone. Picture: ©INPHO/Ben Brady

Munster will need to rediscover their clinical edge in the final five metres when they return to the lion’s den that is Stade Pierre Fabre on Friday night and an appointment with home specialists Castres Olympique.

A 33-7 bonus-point victory over Stade Francais at Thomond Park six days ago represented a significant step forward for Munster’s Champions Cup pool ambitions. They had failed to win their two previous home openers in Durban and Northampton and immediately lost the chance of a home knockout draw, which came back to bite them both times at the Sharks and Saints in successive Round of 16 ties.

Yet despite scoring five tries in Limerick last time out, attack coach Mike Prendergast feels his side’s offensive play was not as potent as it might have been in seeing off 13-man Stade and a more obdurate opponent protecting a six-game unbeaten record this season will require every opportunity near the Castres tryline to be fully exploited if Munster are to place one foot in the knockout stages this weekend.

“Look, we got a good five points but there were aspects we need to get better,” Prendergast said this week as he put his hat in the ring to succeed Graham Rowntree as head coach.

“One of them is we’re creating a lot in terms of our line breaks, this year we’re in the top three or four in Europe, averaging seven or eight and we had eight linebreaks. We need to convert more of them in the 22 so that’s a work on for the moment.

“There were other work ons we assessed just before and after the break, areas of the game (interim head coach) Ian Costello alluded to in terms of the unstructured stuff and at the weekend you could see we were getting scores from that but just our conversion rate inside of the 22.

“We’re getting in there a lot and that’s just an area we need to get better at. You look at the best teams, the likes of Toulouse, even on the weekend (hammering Ulster 61-21), once they get in there they’re quite lethal. So it’s an area we can definitely get better at.” 

Prendergast is convinced Munster are moving in the right direction, and eight tries in victories over URC rivals the Lions and pool foes Stade Francais under Costello since the international break confirms that. Yet it remains a work in progress, he insisted.

“We focused on three areas in attack, defence, whatever it may be and for a lot of it you can definitely see, when we’re in the building as coaches, in terms of the unstructured and improving around that area.

“The other area is the scorezone, the 22 and that’s still a little bit of a work in progress and the thing is, we’ll get in there, it happened against Leinster, three times we had two v ones and they’re the moments, you’ve just got to take them if we’re to go where we want to go.

“But we pulled out all these, extracted what we need to get better at and we went after them and were very honest about it.

“You give the players something to work from and look at the opportunities that we are leaving behind. But some of it’s got to do with composure, execution and so we try and create those scenarios through our training at the moment and the same with the unstructured, turnover, counter-attack, or as they call it in France ‘desord’ (disorder). There can be an advantage and a disadvantage to you at times when you play a French team, so we need to be careful there this weekend.” 

With just a six-day turnaround, including Thursday’s travel to southern France, from one game to the next, further improvements may not be so significant at Castres, with Costello making six changes from the starting line-up which faced Stade last Saturday.

Captain Tadhg Beirne’s promotion from the bench to lock is one of five changes to the forward pack while Mike Haley’s return at full-back is the only alteration to a backline that has supplied six of those eight tries in the last two matches.

The bench also sees returns for props Dave Kilcoyne for his first involvement in almost 12 months after shoulder and ankle issues, and for tighthead Oli Jager a little over two months after sustaining a neck injury against Ospreys in URC round three.

Scrum-half Craig Casey senses gathering momentum since his return from international duty in November as a difficult start to the season appears to have been put to bed.

"There's definitely a bit of momentum,” Casey said. "I wouldn't say 'turned a corner.' It's only a year and a half ago that we won a trophy so there's some really, really good players in the squad and we've always believed in what we're doing. It's just about actually doing it. Like I was saying in my game a while ago, it's actually about putting it out there on a Saturday.

“When you get into that score zone and need to score five metres out, there's probably strides we need to make there. We've talked about that this morning, we've changed a few things so hopefully you'll see that this Friday."

CASTRES: J Dumora; G Palis, J Goodhue, A Cocagi, R Baget; L le Brun, J Fernandez; Q Walcker, G Barlot, W Collier; G Maravat, L Nakarawa; M Babillot (c), T Ardron, A Papalii 

Replacements: L Zarantonello, W de Benedittis, N Corato, P Jedrasiak, F Tukino, S Arata, T Chabouni, A Seguret 

MUNSTER: M Haley; C Nash, T Farrell, A Nankivell, T Abrahams; J Crowley, C Casey; D Bleuler, N Scannell, S Archer; F Wycherley, T Beirne (c); P O’Mahony, J Hodnett, B Gleeson.

Replacements: D Barron, D Kilcoyne, O Jager, T Ahern, A Kendellen, P Patterson, R Scannell, J O’Donoghue.

Referee: Christophe Ridley (England)