'I'll take that one' - Munster skipper Beirne shoulders blame for errors in Bath onslaught
Munster's Tadhg Beirne and Senior Coach Mike Prendergast. Pic: ©INPHO/Dan Clohessy
Tadhg Beirne shouldered his side’s blame for a dismal lineout display as Munster were blown away inside 20 minutes in the Champions Cup pool opening defeat at The Rec on Saturday night.
English champions Bath, coached by former Munster boss Johann van Graan, secured the fastest four-try bonus point in the European top-flight competition as they raced into a 28-0 lead in front of a sell-out crowd and under a deluge of rain, issuing a big statement of intent to their Champions Cup rivals in this 40-14 victory.
It was a horror start for Clayton McMillan’s side, a week on from a second-half collapse at home to the Stormers when a 21-6 half-time lead descended into a 27-21 defeat, Munster conceding a penalty try after a Bath lineout drive was brought down following the concession of successive penalties and the first three of five costly lineout losses.
The maul collapse saw the summer’s Lions player of the series yellow-carded by French referee Jeremy Rozier and Bath scored two converted tries during the sin-binning.
“Yeah, look, I'll take that one on my shoulders,” Beirne said of Munster’s lineout issues.
“I should have went away from the seven-man earlier. You know, we lost two in a row and then I went back to it again. I probably, in hindsight obviously, but that was just a silly error on my part going through it again.
“It would have been the smart decision to get away from it and obviously lost it again, lost another one and then compounded that with a penalty down into the corner and then my yellow card was punished pretty severely when I was off the field.
“So yeah, look it's probably on my shoulders those first 20 minutes unfortunately. I'll have to get over that and move on for next week, but I thought the fight from that point when I came back on was probably more like the Munster we know.
“The lineout was still up and down at times. They defended it well and we just, the execution wasn't there at times and then we got a hold of it for a while, but we’ll regroup and we'll go again next week.”
Munster left The Rec without even a losing bonus point having rallied to 35-14 at half-time thanks to tries from European debutant Edwin Edogbo and Craig Casey, converted by JJ Hanrahan, either side of a maul try finished by Bath loosehead prop Beno Obano, despite the home side having lost tighthead prop Will Stuart to a yellow card themselves on 29 minutes.
It took a late try from Bath replacement forward Ted Hill to break a second-half stalemate with the only points after the interval as van Graan’s side managed the game superbly to deny Munster an entry back into the match.
McMillan had been forced into late changes to his selected team with South Africa lock Jean Kleyn withdrawing for personal reasons and loosehead Michael Milne suffering a knee injury in the warm-up.
Yet there were no excuses for the sloppiness of Munster’s opening quarter as Bath went on the rampage.
“Disappointed, yeah, disappointed,” McMillan said. “We feel like we're a better team than what we showed, especially in the first 15-20 minutes. Against a good quality side, you give them that sort of margin, it's always going to be tough to come back.”
Asked to pinpoint his biggest disappointment, McMillan added: “I think just our execution. And we probably created a little bit of early territory pressure, but weren't able to leverage off that. We lost a few lineouts and that sort of let the pressure off and they were good enough to capitalise.”
Next Saturday’s Pool 2 fixture against Gloucester at Pairc ui Chaoimh, the home of Cork GAA, has now become a must-win game but McMillan said: “It's kind of hard to be thinking about next week when you have the sort of disappointment that's in the changing shed at the moment.
“But there were positives, you know, that's one of the top teams in Europe. We keep the scoreboard pretty even there for 60-odd minutes. We don't want to pat ourselves on the back for that because it's an 80-minute game, but there are some positives and we'll need to find some gains pretty quickly at home next week.”
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