Tadhg Beirne: 'Let’s be honest about it, the style of the game has gone backwards'

BACKWARDS: Munster's Tadhg Beirne feels that they way the game is currnently being played is going backwards. Picture: ©INPHO/Andrew Conan

URC: Munster 8 Leinster 13

It was a disgruntled Tadhg Beirne that faced the media at Thomond Park on Saturday night yet the frustration exhibited by the Munster captain was not just caused by another loss on home turf to derby rivals Leinster but borne from the direction of travel rugby is heading.

Put simply, one of the world’s best players is disturbed by the way the game he loves is trending under its current laws, reducing rugby, in his eyes, to a kicking and scrummaging slugfest. It is a topic regularly discussed in dressing rooms and media conferences these days and it surfaced in Limerick once more after a tense URC match-up that saw Leinster exact revenge for their Croke Park humbling by Munster 10 weeks earlier.

It was a deserved victory, a seventh straight in this fixture at Thomond Park, for a side now unbeaten in six matches since that 31-14 loss at GAA headquarters. And it was built on a rock-solid and wholehearted defence and a better understanding than their hosts that rugby now benefits the team out of possession.

That made for a game of one try apiece, scored more than an hour apart with Dan Kelly’s 70th-minute score for Munster matching man of the match Josh van der Flier’s sixth-minute opener. Munster will regret the opportunities they missed and fume at the breakdown free for all that exasperated head coach Clayton McMillan but the contest saw Harry Byrne’s conversion and two penalties outweighed a single penalty from Jack Crowley, who missed his conversion. It was the arm wrestle in between, however, which exercised this summer’s British & Irish Lions’ player of the series.

“Everyone plays the game differently, don't they? We're trying to bring tempo, sometimes we need to be better at it,” Beirne said. “But a game like that, it just felt like the scrums were a bit messy. I’d say we probably lost by 15 minutes and just reset scrums. It was just so frustrating.

“They want to scrum, they want to kick the corners. They take their time getting there. That's just my opinion on it. I feel like we're trying to bring tempo as best we can. I think we could have been a bit better again today.

“I think we kind of fell into their trap once or twice in terms of slowing the game down. That would be the only thing I would feel on it.” 

Except that wasn’t the only thing. Beirne later added: “Let’s be honest about it, the style of the game has gone backwards. If we're being serious, teams are just kicking the ball.

“Why? Because it's a 50-50 chance of getting the ball back. Teams are going to set-pieces more because if you go up for a 50-50 in the air and you get a knock on, you get a scrum. And if you have a good scrum, you can get a penalty into the corner.

“It's just becoming a set-piece and kicking game with the way they've changed the rules. You see teams kicking more and more and I think it's just going to continue going that way unless they decide to do something about it.” 

Asked to explain his use of the word “backwards”, Beirne replied: “What? The stop-start, it’s just kick, chase, scrum and then go from there, no. You want a bit more flow to the game, personally.

“I suppose that's my opinion on it. I guess all teams are probably spending a lot more time on how they exit and their kicking game and all that kind of stuff. It'll probably take away from attack and defence a little bit because you have to spend so much time on kicking.

“How you chase a kick, what your set-up is, all that kind of stuff.” 

Sitting alongside, Munster head coach Clayton McMillan offered a variation on the theme but the frustration was similar to his captain’s.

“I just think that the game, we should be doing everything that we can to try and bring fatigue into the game,” McMillan said. “I think because fatigue opens up opportunities and it might take 60 minutes for that to happen but then in the last 20 minutes you get an open game and the game could swing either way.

“As much as the guys are putting out on the field, I don't see players walking off absolutely spent because there's been enough stoppages in play. Whether that's the contestable game, whether that's the scrums, I don't know.

“But anything that I think encourages the ability to bring fatigue into the game will make it exciting for players and spectators.” 

The New Zealander added: “I actually think that ball in play time isn't probably the measure that we should be looking at because once the clock stops and you recharge the battery and then you go again, we're actually getting some long periods of play in time, it's the dead time.

“If we look at the time it takes from the start, from the first whistle to the last whistle, I've seen games that have taken longer than two hours. Should it? Should that be happening? I'm not sure.” 

While rugby ponders that one some teams are simply rolling up their sleeves and adjusting their games to the new landscape. It may leave a bitter taste but Munster will have to adapt to survive, and try not to sacrifice their principles in the process.

MUNSTER: M Haley; S Daly, T Farrell, A Nankivell, T Abrahams (D Kelly, 56); J Crowley, C Casey (P Patterson, 71); M Milne (J Loughman, 55), L Barron (D Barron, 55), M Ala’alatoa (J Ryan, 55); E Edogbo (J Kleyn, 49), T Ahern (F Wycherley, 66); T Beirne – captain (J O’Donoghue, 74), J O’Donoghue (J Hodnett, 66), G Coombes.

LEINSTER: C Frawley; T O’Brien (A Osborne, 77), R Ioane, R Henshaw (C Tector, 34), J Lowe, H Byrne, J Gibson-Park (F Gunne, 74); A Porter (P McCarthy, 48), R Kelleher (J McKee, 67), T Clarkson (T Furlong, 48); J McCarthy, J Ryan; M Deegan, J van der Flier (S Penny, 73), C Doris -captain.

Replacement not used: D Mangan.

Referee: Peter Martin (IRFU)