Discipline and defence key for Munster disrupt La Rochelle's 'gratteur gang'

"So I call it the gratteur gang, and it was the first theme that I put up, usually they have four or five gratteurs in a team. La Rochelle had about 13 gratteurs across the squad and it's the same this week. I’m showing lads clips this morning and in one phase of play they'll have six or seven bites off it and they’re very good at it."

Sat, 05 Apr, 2025 - 06:34

Simon Lewis, La Rochelle

The travelling supporters have gathered, the bars and squares of La Rochelle have been turned red and Munster will head towards a sold-out Stade Marcel-Deflandre with confidence high as they gear up to lock horns with Ronan O’Gara’s side.

The omens are good, with Stade Rochelais having failed to win their last eight matches and visitors’ own form having turned a corner in recent weeks with the return of a phalanx of internationals and fit-again players following long-term absences.

Yet whatever the tea leaves suggest, Munster will have to be at their very best on Saturday evening to negate La Rochelle’s power game and there were enough flaws in even their last outing seven days earlier at Connacht to suggest a repeat in France will be ruthlessly punished.

Those inside the away dressing room understand that, not least the need to stay on the right side of Italian match referee Andrea Piardi. Last Saturday’s trip to MacHale Park in Castlebar may have brought a crucial bonus-point victory that strengthened Munster’s hand heading towards the play-offs but the concession of a red card has cost them the services of midfield linchpin Alex Nankivell while two second-half yellow cards turned what should have been a comfortable derby win into a nervy end-game.

No offence to Connacht, whose own league play-off position took a severe jolt with the defeat in Mayo, but Saturday’s switch to European knockout rugby against a powerhouse team which won back-to-back Champions Cups in 2022 and 2023 represents a significant step up in challenge and neither attack coach Mike Prendergast nor captain Tadhg Beirne is reading anything into their recent domestic struggles.

“I think it's pretty straightforward in my eyes,” Beirne said. “It's going to be a pretty intense game, the atmosphere is going to feel like it probably can suffocate you at times, and that is kind of what French rugby, does, and it's probably why they struggle on the road so much.

“That's the challenge. They love the power game, they love big carries, they love big hits, so that's all ahead of us. We're going to have to front up to that and be ready for it all, and hopefully not just match it but be even more physical and more powerful than they are.”

That O’Gara can name a beefy, dynamic pack including Will Skelton, Pierre Bougarit, Levani Botia, Oscar Jegou and skipper Gregory Alldritt whilst still making do without the injured France flanker Pierre Boudehent says much about La Rochelle’s strength and quality in depth and the Munster coach echoed Beirne’s awareness of the home side’s power game.

“What they can bring, they have power athletes, they have a very, very strong set-piece, the top scrum in the (Top 14) competition,” Prendergast said. “They’re very strong at maul time and a big thing that I would speak about, I use the little French terms at times when we're playing French teams, I remember years ago when I was in Grenoble, a ‘gratteur’ is a poacher.

“And that's where you can gain confidence. That's where you can get the crowd behind you. You win a penalty there, you're kicking down into the corner, the crowd gets up, they've a very good maul. They can be very, very effective in the opposition 22, so it's about keeping our discipline, winning our moments that we speak about, you know, in terms of your carries etc, that you just can't give them access.

“So that's what they will bring and if they find that early in the game, that’s where their crowd gets behind them. But the other side of the coin is that we can have influence on that as well, how we perform.”

Prendergast, who cut his coaching teeth at Grenoble, Oyonnax, Stade Francais and Racing 92 before returning home to Munster, said his charges did not want to be the team that facilitated an upturn in their hosts fortunes but there had to be non-negotiables in his team’s performance on the French Atlantic coast, as the captain outlined, first addressing discipline.

"Yeah, look, discipline is a huge part of the game and the thing with us is our discipline has been up and down all season and if you go down to 14 men against these guys you're asking a hell of a lot of your team-mates,” Beirne said. “So we'll need 15 men on the field for the whole game and look, if we do go down to 14, that's just the way it goes, we're going to have to try to figure it out and deal with it in the moment, but we're certainly planning on having 15 on the field for the entire game.

"I think it's all going to come down to our defence, personally. You know how good their power game is, you know how good their off-load game is and everything but the reality is we're going to have to shut them down at source as best we can and we can't give them easy yards, especially close contact stuff, contact metres and that, we're going to try and stop them there because once they get momentum that's where they're at their best. That's the big challenge for us and we're going to have to front up massively and that's our big focus this week, making sure we're ready and we know how much of a battle that's going to be, but that way we've been talking and training, I think lads are ready for that.”

LA ROCHELLE: D Leyds; J Nowell, T Thomas, UJ Seuteni, H Bosmorin; I West, T Kerr-Barlow; R Wardi, P Bourgarit, U Atonio; T Lavault, W Skelton; L Botia, O Jegou, G Alldritt (C)

Replacements: Q Lespiaucq, A Kaddouri, A Kuntelia, U Dillane, J Cancoriet, M Haddad, A Hastoy, J Favre.

MUNSTER: T Abrahams; C Nash, T Farrell, S O’Brien, A Smith; J Crowley, C Casey; J Loughman, D Barron, O Jager; J Kleyn, T Beirne (C); P O’Mahony, J Hodnett, G Coombes.

Replacements: N Scannell, J Wycherley, S Archer, F Wycherley, T Ahern, C Murray, R Scannell, A Kendellen.

Referee: Andrea Piardi (Italy).