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Munster need the last laugh Friday... their sad record at Leinster has gone beyond a joke

By Liam Heagney
(Photo By Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile via Getty Images)

What is rare is always wonderful. Look at the joy that surrounded Glasgow and Scarlets respectively winning the 2015 and 2017 PRO12 titles, uprisings that gave Scotland and Wales their next Test team head coaches and reminded everyone that the currently titled PRO14 isn’t just about the four Irish provinces. 

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The Irish have consistently monstered this tournament despite the tendency for Ireland Test level players to not feature very much in it due to central contracting. Look at Johnny Sexton – this Friday night, if the stats on his Leinster website profile are on point, will finally bring up his 100th PRO14 appearance nearly 15 years after his January 2006 league debut at Borders. 

That’s an enormous length of time but the thing with Sexton, along with so many of his Test colleagues, is that he is rarely missed at PRO14 level, such is the richness of the resources coursing through the Irish development system which ensures it maintains its general dominance over the Scots, the Welsh and the others who make up the numbers in this 19-season-old tournament.

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It has nearly been ever thus: 13 of the league’s 19 editions have been played with knockout stage finales and this weekend’s latest last-four line-up is the sixth occasion – the fourth in the past seven campaigns – in which Ireland’s teams have taken three of the four semi-final spots.

That’s rather greedy, and yet this dominance isn’t without its idiosyncrasies. Take this Friday’s scheduling. A five-day turnaround is usually frowned upon in Irish circles where player welfare is at the top of the central contracting agenda. 

Just remember how Leinster accused European officials of taking the pee some years ago when they had to follow an away pool assignment in France on a Sunday by backing up that effort in Dublin the following Friday. Munster’s travelling this week won’t be as excessive – just two round trips on the M7 from Limerick – but the fact they have to go all-out with a dozen of the same starting team that ran out versus Connacht last Sunday goes against the grain of the Irish ‘we look after our players so very well’ mantra. 

What gives? With the Republic of Ireland soccer team booked in to play at the Aviva on Sunday, a Friday night slot was given to Leinster-Munster, an insult to Munster given the short turnaround it forced on them.

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Add in how they seldom if ever win in Dublin these days – one win in 15 away to Leinster since ‘nilling’ them in September 2008 – and it’s safe to suggest the challenge confronting them is Everest-like for a club trying so very hard to replicate magical past glories. 

Getting over the big-stage hump has long become an issue in a dreadful derby sequence that started with that seminal Heineken Cup semi-final loss at Croke Park in 2009 and in recent years has featured successive PRO14 semi-final defeats at the RDS. 

What has continuously done for Munster is the near set-in-stone pattern whereby Leinster usually dictate early on the scoreboard, leaving the visitors to play catch-up. This was yet again the case last Saturday week when the hosts leapt 24-13 clear before the late drama that was JJ Hanrahan missing a conversion to tie the game at 27-all. 

If there is a blueprint for getting the job done, it’s the 2014 Aviva plan that had the fingerprints of the late Anthony Foley all over it. Munster savaged Leinster in the opening half that day, leading 28-9 at the break before closing out a deserved 34-23 win.

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Their pack was ravenous on that occasion and essentially the moral is that Munster must lead from the front on Friday night, be the aggressor and force Leinster from their comfort zone rather than having to fashion a futile late comeback after their initial strategy fails to work. 

There is something to enthuse in the sense that wingers Andrew Conway and Keith Earls retain the potency to deliver tries, an ability to go wide that reflects positively on the first-term manipulations of assistant coach Stephen Larkham, an armoury now added to by the confrontational attributes of new midfield signing Damian de Allende.    

But Munster badly need a victory to endorse the curious Johann van Graan reign. Onboard since November 2017 when Rassie Erasmus hurried back to South Africa to fashion their World Cup triumph, doubts exist that van Graan genuinely has the capabilities to end a trophy drought that stretches back to Munster’s 2011 Thomond Park league final win over Leinster, the foe who have since lifted seven trophies while Munster have been potless.

It was a fortunate European quarter-final win over Edinburgh in April 2019 that earned the South African his contract extension rather than the club waiting and factoring semi-finals losses to Saracens and Leinster into their thinking, and he has similarly been fortunate since then in that this year’s Covid stoppage helped people forget his team exited Europe at the pool stage last January – a rare occurrence for a club whose annual minimum is reaching the last-eight shake-up.  

It’s why this latest PRO14 showdown with Leinster has the feel of something of a crossroads. Can van Grann finally deliver and allow Munster regain some high ground, or will they continue to remain eclipsed by the long shadow cast by the stronger Leinster squad that keeps pushing back the boundaries, their latest trick being the engineering of a record 21-game league and cup winning streak in 2019/20? We’ll know the answer about this fork in the road soon enough.

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Jon 5 hours ago
Jake White: Are modern rugby players actually better?

This is the problem with conservative mindsets and phycology, and homogenous sports, everybody wants to be the same, use the i-win template. Athlete wise everyone has to have muscles and work at the gym to make themselves more likely to hold on that one tackle. Do those players even wonder if they are now more likely to be tackled by that player as a result of there “work”? Really though, too many questions, Jake. Is it better Jake? Yes, because you still have that rugby of ole that you talk about. Is it at the highest International level anymore? No, but you go to your club or checkout your representative side and still engage with that ‘beautiful game’. Could you also have a bit of that at the top if coaches encouraged there team to play and incentivized players like Damian McKenzie and Ange Capuozzo? Of course we could. Sadly Rugby doesn’t, or didn’t, really know what direction to go when professionalism came. Things like the state of northern pitches didn’t help. Over the last two or three decades I feel like I’ve been fortunate to have all that Jake wants. There was International quality Super Rugby to adore, then the next level below I could watch club mates, pulling 9 to 5s, take on the countries best in representative rugby. Rugby played with flair and not too much riding on the consequences. It was beautiful. That largely still exists today, but with the world of rugby not quite getting things right, the picture is now being painted in NZ that that level of rugby is not required in the “pathway” to Super Rugby or All Black rugby. You might wonder if NZR is right and the pathway shouldn’t include the ‘amateur’, but let me tell you, even though the NPC might be made up of people still having to pull 9-5s, we know these people still have dreams to get out of that, and aren’t likely to give them. They will be lost. That will put a real strain on the concept of whether “visceral thrill, derring-do and joyful abandon” type rugby will remain under the professional level here in NZ. I think at some point that can be eroded as well. If only wanting the best athlete’s at the top level wasn’t enough to lose that, shutting off the next group, or level, or rugby players from easy access to express and showcase themselves certainly will. That all comes back around to the same question of professionalism in rugby and whether it got things right, and rugby is better now. Maybe the answer is turning into a “no”?

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j
john 7 hours ago
Will the Crusaders' decline spark a slow death for New Zealand rugby?

But here in Australia we were told Penney was another gun kiwi coach, for the Tahs…….and yet again it turned out the kiwi coach was completely useless. Another con job on Australian rugby. As was Robbie Deans, as was Dave Rennie. Both coaches dumped from NZ and promoted to Australia as our saviour. And the Tahs lap them up knowing they are second rate and knowing that under pressure when their short comings are exposed in Australia as well, that they will fall in below the largest most powerful province and choose second rate Tah players to save their jobs. As they do and exactly as Joe Schmidt will do. Gauranteed. Schmidt was dumped by NZ too. That’s why he went overseas. That why kiwi coaches take jobs in Australia, to try and prove they are not as bad as NZ thought they were. Then when they get found out they try and ingratiate themselves to NZ again by dragging Australian teams down with ridiculous selections and game plans. NZ rugby’s biggest problem is that it can’t yet transition from MCaw Cheatism. They just don’t know how to try and win on your merits. It is still always a contest to see how much cheating you can get away with. Without a cheating genius like McCaw, they are struggling. This I think is why my wise old mate in NZ thinks Robertson will struggle. The Crusaders are the nursery of McCaw Cheatism. Sean Fitzpatrick was probably the father of it. Robertson doesn’t know anything else but other countries have worked it out.

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A
Adrian 9 hours ago
Will the Crusaders' decline spark a slow death for New Zealand rugby?

Thanks Nick The loss of players to OS, injury and retirement is certainly not helping the Crusaders. Ditto the coach. IMO Penny is there to hold the fort and cop the flak until new players and a new coach come through,…and that's understood and accepted by Penny and the Crusaders hierarchy. I think though that what is happening with the Crusaders is an indicator of what is happening with the other NZ SRP teams…..and the other SRP teams for that matter. Not enough money. The money has come via the SR competition and it’s not there anymore. It's in France, Japan and England. Unless or until something is done to make SR more SELLABLE to the NZ/Australia Rugby market AND the world rugby market the $s to keep both the very best players and the next rung down won't be there. They will play away from NZ more and more. I think though that NZ will continue to produce the players and the coaches of sufficient strength for NZ to have the capacity to stay at the top. Whether they do stay at the top as an international team will depend upon whether the money flowing to SRP is somehow restored, or NZ teams play in the Japan comp, or NZ opts to pick from anywhere. As a follower of many sports I’d have to say that the organisation and promotion of Super Rugby has been for the last 20 years closest to the worst I’ve ever seen. This hasn't necessarily been caused by NZ, but it’s happened. Perhaps it can be fixed, perhaps not. The Crusaders are I think a symptom of this, not the cause

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T
Trevor 12 hours ago
Will forgotten Wallabies fit the Joe Schmidt model?

Thanks Brett.. At last a positive article on the potential of Wallaby candidates, great to read. Schmidt’s record as an international rugby coach speaks for itself, I’m somewhat confident he will turn the Wallaby’s fortunes around …. on the field. It will be up to others to steady the ship off the paddock. But is there a flaw in my optimism? We have known all along that Australia has the players to be very competitive with their international rivals. We know that because everyone keeps telling us. So why the poor results? A question that requires a definitive answer before the turn around can occur. Joe Schmidt signed on for 2 years, time to encompass the Lions tour of 2025. By all accounts he puts family first and that’s fair enough, but I would wager that his 2 year contract will be extended if the next 18 months or so shows the statement “Australia has the players” proves to be correct. The new coach does not have a lot of time to meld together an outfit that will be competitive in the Rugby Championship - it will be interesting to see what happens. It will be interesting to see what happens with Giteau law, the new Wallaby coach has already verbalised that he would to prefer to select from those who play their rugby in Australia. His first test in charge is in July just over 3 months away .. not a long time. I for one wish him well .. heaven knows Australia needs some positive vibes.

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