Axel honoured, Europe parked, Munster turn eyes up the road

Looking ahead to Munster's clash with Leinster, head coach Clayton McMillan said his side need to 'tidy up the areas where I think we were a little vulnerable'

Clayton McMillan: 'I think what you're seeing is a youthful team and one that's missing probably 10 starters.' Pic: ©INPHO/Dan Clohessy

Champions Cup: Munster 33 Racing 92 25

Clayton McMillan hopes Munster supporters are appreciating what he is seeing as solid indicators of progress from his squad as they got their Champions Cup pool campaign off to a winning start at Supervalu Páirc Uí Chaoimh.

Only last December, McMillan was experiencing one of the many bumps in the road that marred the first season of his Munster tenure as Johan van Graan’s Bath put his side to the sword during an opening-round deluge at The Rec.

Ten months on and the green shoots he signposted after the first-round URC defeat at home to Glasgow Warriors just three weeks ago are beginning to blossom. On a night in Cork when Munster paid tribute to their late head coach and iconic captain Anthony Foley, McMillan’s side did his predecessor proud to outscore Racing 92 by five tries to three and start their effort to progress from Pool 3 on the best possible footing.

Tries from Foley’s latest successor at No.8 Brian Gleeson, wing Shay McCarthy, captain Tadhg Beirne, replacement lock Fineen Wycherley and player of the match Craig Casey were enough to hold off a potentially dangerous second-half comeback from a French Top 14 side that had trailed 14-6 at the interval and 28-18 on the hour mark.

As McMillan himself admitted, his team are from the finished article and there will be further obstacles along the road this season, not least a trip to URC defending champions Leinster at Aviva Stadium this Saturday.

“I imagine after looking at the game tonight, they would have seen a number of avenues that they can look to attack us with,” he said of Munster’s derby rivals. “We'll need to make sure that we do our homework and tidy up the areas where I think we were a little vulnerable, but also look at where we can have a crack at them.” 

There was enough in Munster’s European performance to satisfy the head coach his squad can travel to Dublin with genuine positivity.

“If you look at the profile of player in Racing, they're a big powerful side and their traditional strengths of scrum, maul and going straight through the middle of teams, you saw that a lot tonight where they were just picking narrow and trying to force us to miss tackles or give away silly offside penalties that give them easier access up the field.

“I thought we did that really well. Our first couple of mauls were a little bit dusty and they got some reward but we adjusted quickly and they really didn't get anything from that.

“I thought a lot of our defensive sets were outstanding. The tries that they scored were I think a few from scraps. The high ball - I think we've come second by a long way in the aerial battle today - they were good enough to score from that but I'd be more concerned if we'd given away set-piece tries or soft tries from phase play.

“That wasn't really the case today. They utilised their profile of player well when given the opportunity.”

Precisely a year ago this Monday, Munster had completed a five-game winning start under the former Chiefs boss with a handsome victory over Leinster at Croke Park. The season would unravel from that point on but this looks a team more capable of staying on the straight and narrow and making substantial progress this time around.

In Gleeson, 22, and McCarthy, 23, two of their brightest young stars shone with key contributions in the first half to set the platform for victory. There was a Champions Cup debut for flanker Seán Edogbo, 22, and 20-year-old first-year academy fly-half Charlie O’Shea looked completely at home leading his side into European competition for the first time, just four games into his professional career.

"I thought they did really well. They didn't appear to be any different. They walked towards the challenge when they were named,” McMillan said.

“I thought they all played exceptionally well against the Bulls and, over the first four weeks, we've had a fairly heavy rotation.

“It's a pretty arduous first six weeks of the competition for us. There's absolutely no easy games and we just won't have the capacity to roll the same people out, week after week, so they've stepped up and forced people like Jack (O’Donoghue, sitting alongside) to... know that there's people breathing down his neck and that makes him get better and that's what we need as a squad.

“They had some really bright moments out there, but equally we named a fairly experienced bench today, anticipating that it would go down to the wire and that's what happened. I think some of our experience that came on had some influential moments that perhaps helped us get across the line so it's a collective effort, but those young guys are doing great.” 

McMillan added: “I hope what people are seeing is they're seeing people that are happy to turn up to work, seeing the evolution of a clear identity around how we want to play; a team that when put under pressure is going to fight hard to win more moments than we lose. I think we're seeing some good evidence of that.

“I think what you're seeing is a youthful team and one that's missing probably 10 starters. As a coach you'd love to have all your bodies available but in the early part of the season when we've had tough games we've been there or thereabouts and I think that's hugely positive and we look forward in the coming weeks and months to having a lot of those guys back and when we do I think we could be a pretty good rugby team.” 

MUNSTER: B O’Connor; S McCarthy, A Nankivell, D Kelly, S O’Brien; C O’Shea (JJ Hanrahan, 57), C Casey (B O’Donovan, 78); J Loughman (J Wycherley, 57), M van der Merwe (M Clein, 78), J Aungier (K Brookes, 57); T Ahern (F Wycherley, 59), T Beirne (capt); S Edogbo (J O’Donoghue, 53), J Hodnett, B Gleeson (G Coombes, 53).

RACING 92: G Prisciantelli; W Hulleu, V Habosi (S James, 49), J Manu, S Tupou (A Roche, 57); A Gibert, A Latrasse (M Machenaud, 49); E Jabea Njocke (L Leota, 44), D Escobar (Y Basse, 77), G Kharaishvili (D Bamba, 44); T Lainault, J Joseph (N Hughes, 61), L Tagitagivalu, N Martins, M Baudonne (capt).

Yellow card: A Roche 71 mins 

Replacement not used: S Camara 

Referee: Karl Dickson (England)