McNamara's Bordeaux side have short turn-around to prepare for Munster challenge

“We spoke about it during the week, we spoke about it again this morning, how much this competition means to Irish teams and how difficult they are to beat, so I think that was very much in evidence today."

Sun, 06 Apr, 2025 - 18:58

Simon Lewis

Bordeaux attack coach Noel McNamara has warned his side of the challenge they will face from Munster next Saturday as the French title-chasers and Champions Cup top seeds prepare to welcome an Irish province to Stade Chaban-Delmas for the second weekend in a row.

Former Ireland U20 head coach and Clareman McNamara saw Bordeaux-Begles outgun a game and resilient Ulster side by six tries to five on Sunday, their 43-31 Round of 16 victory setting up a last-eight clash with Munster, who were 25-24 victors at La Rochelle on Saturday.

Damian Penaud, Ben Tameifuna and Adam Coleman had given UBB a 21-0 first-quarter lead before the concession of two Ulster tries, only for full-back Romain Buros to finish a super counter-attack from deep sparked by former Munster fly-half Joey Carbery just before half-time.

Maxime Lamothe and Rohan Janse van Rensburg finished the job after half-time, though Bordeaux again conceded tries, and McNamara said the French team will have another difficult task ahead of them when Munster visit Chaban-Delmas.

“The first thing you’ve got to do is give a lot of credit to Ulster,” McNamara told Premier Sport. “A lot of teams at 21-0 down might have struggled a little bit. They came back at us, they got a couple of tries at the end of that first half and again in the second half, they never went away.

“Obviously for us, the most important thing is getting through to the next round, and what a challenge that’s going to be.

“We’ve got a short turn-around – it’s only six days – and realistically speaking we probably know that that won’t be good enough, but I felt that overall it’s a positive and lots for us to work on.”

Munster legend and La Rochelle head coach Ronan O’Gara feels UBB have not been at their blistering best of late and he gives Munster more than a fighting chance against his Top 14 counterparts.

“Yeah, they've momentum now and that's the most important thing,” the Munster legend said on Saturday night.

“You look at Bordeaux, they are a seriously impressive side but they don't have momentum because they got rattled by Toulouse's so-called second team and they made them worry a lot and then they lost to Racing last week. They were on fire from September to March but there's definitely been a slowing down, or a belt to the juggernaut that was Bordeaux.”