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One ugly Friday night moment summed up the dull, insipid, uninspired van Graan era

By Liam Heagney
(Photo By Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile via Getty Images)

The more things change, the more they stay the same in Irish provincial rugby judging by Friday night’s evidence in Dublin. Covid-era rugby at the Aviva wasn’t a barrel of laughs. Gone were the usual trappings of a major sport event: the fans, the lashings of pints, the nibbles, the colourful cacophony of noise usually present for these Leinster vs Munster Guinness PRO14 derbies.

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Instead, there was sterility. Temperature checking, social distancing, mask-wearing in a forlorn stadium with 50,000 empty seats. Then the post-game kicker arrived, the coaches delivering their thoughts via a hazy Microsoft Teams connection from a basement room five floors beneath the media box. 

It was all weirdly different, yet the reason for being there was all weirdly familiar, Leinster doing to Munster what they have long been doing now in the Irish capital – giving them the short shrift and shunting them back down the M7 with nothing more than the feeling of despair. 

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RugbyPass brings you Game Day, the behind the scenes documentary on the 2018 Guinness PRO14 final between Leinster and Scarlets in Dublin

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RugbyPass brings you Game Day, the behind the scenes documentary on the 2018 Guinness PRO14 final between Leinster and Scarlets in Dublin

Getting mugged in Dublin is nothing new. Friday night was the 15th time in 16 visits since 2009 that Munster had fallen to Leinster and you have to wonder about the accountability. Where has the straight-talking, the look yourself in the mirror type of candid reflection gone?

No sooner had the grounds people appeared on the PRO14 pitch to begin its conversion into a football pitch for an international game on Sunday was CJ Stander below in the stadium bowels delivering the hard to swallow Munster message that “we are in a very good spot – this group can push hard next season”. 

Push hard where exactly? The sobering reality of this ugly PRO14 semi-final spectacle was how it brought confirmation of how Munster are stuck in a time loop that just repeats over and over. There is no real evidence of growth in the three years Johann van Graan has been at the helm. Leinster won this without ever needing to zip through the gears, rendering recent analysis that Munster have somehow adapted their game plan as blarney.

With it, an amusing Twitter account soon popped up on the timeline, MurraysBoxKick tweeting: “989 vertical metres tonight. Pretty happy with that.” It was part of the overall consensus that Munster had punted away too much possession, a monotonous tactic when you have an attack coach of the calibre of Stephen Larkham on your roster these past twelve months.

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Truth be told, though, Munster didn’t definitively lose this in the skies – their tally of 36 kicks from the hand was only three more than Leinster’s 33. Instead, where they gave a very poor second best was in the hard yards traffic, their pack – the eight starters and the bench cavalry – making a paltry ten metres from 27 carries. 

Contrast that with Leinster’s 45 metres from 48 carries. In an ugly game of inches, this made all the difference, and the Munster negligence was encapsulated in the final act, replacement hooker Kevin O’Byrne aimlessly grubber kicking into touch rather than carrying and trying to create. That one moment summed up the van Grann era – dull, insipid, uninspired and no closer to getting over the repeated semi-final hump.

Whereas van Graan has now lost five of these last-four fixtures (three in the league, two in Europe), Leinster remain the beacon on how to learn from your mishaps. It was 2017 when they crashed and burned in the European and league last four, suckered by Clermont and Scarlets. Since then? All five semi-final fixtures have been clinically won. Like Ronseal, one of the PRO14’s subsidiary sponsors, they do exactly what they say on their tin – hang tough, deliver results. They know their game. 

“Pretty ugly stuff, ugly contest, but we’re through,” chirped Leo Cullen in Friday’s aftermath. Spot on. Now for next Saturday’s final back at the Aviva.  

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Jon 7 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 10 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.

39 Go to comments
A
Adrian 12 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

39 Go to comments
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