Munster settle on selection as Prendergast seeks attacking cohesion in Toulon

COHESION: Munster look set to revert to consistent team selection with the return of their Ireland internationals for this Sunday’s Champions Cup pool clash at Toulon with Mike Prendergast hoping he will finally get some cohesive attack play after a half-season of squad rotation. Picture: ©INPHO/Tom O’Hanlon

Munster look set to revert to consistent team selection with the return of their Ireland internationals for this Sunday’s Champions Cup pool clash at Toulon with Mike Prendergast hoping he will finally get some cohesive attack play after a half-season of squad rotation.

A chastening night at Ulster’s hands in Belfast last Friday and a second URC derby loss inside a week has seen head coach Clayton McMillan’s commitment to growing squad depth through game time come at the expense of attacking fluency, with Munster failing to cross the whitewash in a 28-3 defeat in round nine having lost 13-8 in Limerick to Leinster on December 27. There were 10 changes in between games, including the enforced rest under IRFU player welfare guidelines afforded to captain Tadhg Beirne, scrum-half Craig Casey, fly-half Jack Crowley and outside centre Tom Farrell.

That is set to change, however, with senior coach Prendergast, in charge of Munster’s attack, confirming the time for rotation is over with the chance of a home draw in the European knockout stages still very much alive in a condensed Pool 2, where just one point separates all six clubs with two rounds to play.

McMillan’s strategy has not been abandoned, with the New Zealander’s intention that his use of more than 50 players before Christmas will benefit his squad at the back end of the season. Yet there are big games to be won in the here and now and Prendergast on Tuesday said: “Clayton has a plan around that and he spoke about it openly, I can say he said it to some players this morning as well. It's now where we'll start seeing teams on a more regular basis.

“Obviously, there's going to be, there's going to be changes here and there through injury, through form, et cetera. But you would hope that that would, because it's probably the one thing you need above anything in your attack is to be connected and to be cohesive.

“Sometimes, I suppose, in defence, you can maybe get away with it, but in attack, you definitely can't get away with it. So, it's something. It's part of it, it's not all of it, but it will help us, I think, when we see more of a settled team.” 

Prendergast was at pains to point out that the reasons for Munster’s defeat at Ulster last time out were not due to a lack of experience compared to the team which was fielded six days earlier against Leinster and there was not a case of McMillan having a first-choice 15 and a big fall-off to the next players in line for selection.

“I don't think it's even when the top 15 are playing, I think it's, as I spoke with the cohesiveness, whether there's some guys that are looked at as within the top 15 or not in the top 15 or 23 or whatever way you want to do it.

“I suppose we've been mixing and matching. There was obviously a lot of experience came out of the group the other night (in Belfast). There was still enough there though when you look at it. I think there was something like a 94-cap average between the players we had on the pitch, which is still a fair hefty amount of experience, you know.

“And I suppose when you look at what we went against as well, Ulster, they have a young squad as well, so overall it was the disappointment of not firing enough shots.

“The first half we kind of held in there (Ulster led 6-3 at half-time), and then the second half was just disappointing. We were second to everything, the aerial, our groundwork, it just didn't allow us a foothold into the game whatsoever. That's a credit to Ulster as well, but we look at ourselves first and we've got to be a lot better.” 

Prendergast insisted Munster had good strength in depth, despite that not appearing to be the case right now.

“I suppose the depth thing at the moment, because our performance hasn't been where it needs to be, it might not look that way. But when you work with players, you see them every day and you see maybe what we've done in the past and we've seen what we've done in certain aspects of the games this year.

“For me, there is good depth there, absolutely. It's just about, I know Clayton has said it before, it's about raising the floor and that's something that we're looking at, at the moment, 100% we are.

“We're trying to improve in everything we do. But after the weekend it was probably two or three things that we really narrowed down. Because, yes, it was four or five things we came up short, but two or three things, we know it will have a knock-on effect to how we want to perform.”