Munster v Saracens preview: Reds must roll back the years in must-win showdown

The English outfit come to Thomond Park on Saturday evening. 

FIRE AND ICE: Attack Coach Mike Prendergast. Pic: INPHO/James Crombie

Not for the first time in a long and storied timeline of European club rugby, Munster go into a penultimate round of pool play welcoming English opposition to Thomond Park on a winter’s evening needing to pull a rabbit out of the hat to keep Champions Cup hopes alive.

Yes, Saturday’s visit of a powerhouse and free-scoring Saracens side has all the hallmarks of a famous night in store for Munster supporters under the Limerick lights, and with 20,750 tickets sold as of Friday afternoon the fixture has caught the imagination. Yet such has been the home team’s inconsistency over the opening five months of the season to date, both from week to week and across an 80-minute game, that a backs-to-the-wall, us against the world performance from the men in whatever shade of red the current competition jersey is far from guaranteed.

A victory in this final home game of a four-match pool phase is an absolute must. Munster must travel to Northampton Saints in the last round in seven days and the English champions and last season’s semi-finalists are motoring along nicely with two wins from two to top Pool 3 at the halfway stage and every expectation of securing a victory at bottom club Stade Francais as the Irish province plays hosts to the similarly unbeaten Saracens. Going to Franklin’s Gardens in need of a win on the last day is a task interim boss Ian Costello and his staff will want to avoid at all costs.

Yet nor is overcoming this Sarries side, with all its heft and potency, an appealing prospect for a side that has fallen short in front of the tryline more than once this season, not least in defeat at home last time out to Leinster in Christmas week.

Munster’s attack coach Mike Prendergast is extremely wary of the threats currently posed by the English Premiership outfits his side must face, borne out by high-scoring domestic results with Saracens defeating Bristol 35-26 in London to move third in the table last weekend and Saints edging leaders Bath 35-34.

"I think they've a huge focus on their attack over there, a lot of the teams do,” Prendergast said this week. “So most weeks there's high-scoring games there and that brings a threat straight away. It brings a threat in what they can do with ball in hand but also it means that you've got to score as well.

"I think if you go back two or three years ago it might have dipped a small bit, I do see their game, especially from an attacking point of view, and their mentality has changed in that aspect. They are high-scoring games and they're high-scoring teams.

"You look at both teams last week, Saracens against Bristol was a high scoring game, especially from the Saracens point of view, and Northampton against Bath and Bath are another side that are quite impressive with ball in hand as well.

"So we need to be on it on both sides of the ball in the next two weeks in terms of being able to shut teams down but also taking our opportunities and creating as well.” And there’s the rub. In defence only the bottom-placed Dragons have conceded more URC points than the 233 shipped by Munster in the opening nine rounds while as creative as they have been with ball in hand at times this season, they have not taken their opportunities, Prendergast pointing to seven blown chances against Leinster from inside five metres alone 15 days ago.

Yet while high-scoring games can pose threats they also provide opportunities for opponents and Munster have to find a way to start converting if they are to reach the knockout stages in their next two games.

The two-week break since that Leinster defeat will need to have been utilised well and Prendergast struck an optimistic note as Munster prepare to rebound from that Thomond Park reverse.

“The change-up in competition is good. We know there is little room for error with this fixture especially.

“The boys have really come in bouncing on Monday and getting a few players back brings that energy back as well, which will help us.

“This game, in reality, is probably going to come down to moments again. It’s two teams that probably wouldn’t be a million miles away from each other, I don’t think, and I think it’s going to come down to those moments.

“It’s about us being rightly on it and being able to take those moments on both sides of the ball, to be honest with you.

“And that was the real focus when we came in on Monday but the energy has been good. We look inside here and we see what we are doing well.

“It’s a 28-7 game (v Leinster) at home in Thomond Park in front of 27,000 people, absolutely, when we strip it back and we look at the moments that we left behind like we did in Croke Park (in the reverse URC fixture), that ironically gives us an excitement as well in terms of what we created and we presented, we didn’t take.

“It’s like in a game of football, you create, but you don’t finish it off and I suppose that’s what we are really focusing on. But that gets you excited because we are creating, we need to finish.”