Leinster loss a bruising lesson for Munster
Munster kick off their pool campaign with potentially their toughest date in the group qualifying phase, a trip to French Top14 champions, Racing Metro. It will be a difficult pool to negotiate, with Glasgow Warriors and Leicester Tigers also lying in wait, and director of rugby, Erasmus, could have done without a 25-14 derby defeat to Leinster, in Dublin, last Saturday, which was compounded by the manner of the loss.
Munster failed to capitalise on long periods of possession and were outscored by their interprovincial rivals by three tries to two. Errant defending contributed to Erasmus’s woes, as did a James Cronin try, disallowed for a double movement. A missed tackle by Darren Sweetnam allowed an Isa Nacewa score in the corner in the first-half, while handling errors by Ronan O’Mahony and fly-half Tyler Bleyendaal teed up Leinster’s third try, for Jamieson Gibson-Park, after Munster failed to deal with a Robbie Henshaw kick over the top of their defensive line.
“There’s no way a loss doesn’t knock your confidence, for any team, and we will have to do a proper analysis,” Erasmus said. “I can tell you now, the bottom line was, if you give them 14 points, you’re going to lose by 14 points. That wasn’t hard work for (Leinster) to get those 14 points, so although it will hit confidence a little bit, the reality check would be ‘don’t do stupid things like that’.
“It might have been a totally different thing, if we are standing here and we scored the (Cronin) try there, but for the double-movement. It is tough to predict, so rather than pointing fingers at our attack, we have a lot to work on in attack, and I agree. But if you are going to start giving away tries, you are going to have to start working way harder, and so much harder to get there. But there were some options out attacking wide, which we didn’t take.”
But Leinster were a welcome step-up following on from Munster’s facile, seven-try victory over a sorry Zebre the previous week.Leinster were good preparation for the tough challenges in Europe that lie ahead.
“The way we lost to Leinster isn’t ideal. It is an away game against Leinster that we lost and probably isn’t something we should dwell on too long,” Erasmus said. “It is so easy to know what we did wrong, to fix it is another challenge. It was of help going into Europe; it was like a European game.”
Meanwhile, Keith Wood and Killian Hurley will join Munster’s non-executive commercial board, which provides strategic guidance and support to the branch committee structures and management.
A former Munster and Ireland player, Wood has 20 years’ experience in sports marketing, brand engagement, strategic planning and sponsorship. Hurley is co-founder and majority shareholder of Mount Anvil and has worked in the London property market since 1988.
The Munster Rugby commercial board has proven instrumental in creating the Munster Rugby Patrons and Friends Programmes, which has supported the Greencore Academy and, most recently, the development of the new High Performance Centre.
