Sean Farrell reports from Stade Pierre Fabre
NOT FAR REMOVED from the chaos of the pitch invasion that followed the fiery match on a dirty night in Castres, it took a fair bit of effort to glean a positive outlook.
A look at the standings helped, with Munster perched top of Heineken Champions Cup pool 2. Yet as their three rivals line up within four points after the 13-12 loss, it’s easy to ponder on what might have been.
“It probably is,” says Peter O’Mahony after being asked if the losing bonus point is any consolation after the gruelling battle. But his frustration was evident as he turned his ire to Munster’s performance.
“I don’t think we played well enough. Again, our breakdown was very poor. That’s really the heart of the game. We were beaten there across the board.
“I don’t think we can have argument with regards to the result. I don’t think we deserved to win. There’s plenty of inaccuracies that we need to have a look at.”
Munster’s scrummaging was once again the pride of the province’s work. But the combination of being whistled off the breakdown and thwarted at the line-out served to nullify any solid footing and brought about Munster’s first try-less European performance since a December 2015 round 4 loss to Leicester in Welford Road.
“If you don’t make sure to look after your possession or set-piece, “you are going to get the tail-end of it,” says CJ Stander.
We made it difficult for ourselves in this pool. It was always going to be that way, but we could have made it easier for ourselves.”
Just as the likely punishment in store for clear contact with the eye area of Chris Cloete will feel a little too late, the inaccuracies and missed opportunities will linger on as a nasty sting. Joey Carbery and Conor Murray missed four kicks at goal between them – none of them straightforward, but all kickable by their standards – and any one of them would have made all the difference.
A try, a nose in front would have been invaluable.
The pool could have a very different complexion had Munster been able to retain possession after Murray’s break and Rory Kockott’s sin-bin on the stroke of half-time, or had Benjamin Urdapilleta not been permitted to slide feet-first into Andrew Conway to force the wing to knock-on after his excellent second-half chip and chase down the right flank.
In a bear pit in politically-riled France, you need a lot of luck to make decisions go the way of the visitors.
“Regardless of the breakdown we had enough opportunities to get some more points on the board and we didn’t,” said Johann van Graan, “well done to Castres for winning by one point in a really intense game of rugby.”
The South African looks to the wider pool picture with a positive hue, but standing in a warm-up room of Stade Pierre Fabre, defeat is an open wound.
“(A) big lesson learned last year in the Racing game, that one bonus point made a big difference at the end.
“Very disappointed that we lost this game. We knew it was going to be a battle and a battle it was, I think two teams that really wanted to win.
I guess the frustrating thing is we created enough opportunities. Small margins in sport, you score that try, you win and it’s a different ballgame. But, you know, we didn’t win the game so that’s not good enough.
“Going back to the bonus point, we’ll take it. We’re still three points ahead of Castres and four (ahead of) the two opponents that we play. So the Gloucester and Exeter games will be massive and so will the Gloucester-Castres and Exeter-Castres games.
“I think that’s the beauty of Europe and pools. It’s a pretty tight pool and four teams are still in it with two rounds to go.”
Van Graan did warn that the quarter-final race could come to this. When most of us drew a line through Exeter Chiefs’ hopes after a draw and two losses, the head coach wouldn’t demote them from being a live threat. And now, should they beat Castres in Sandy Park, they can go to Thomond Park for a grandstand finish to a pool where second place almost certainly won’t be enough to reach the knock-out stage.
“I said last week, a lot of people said Exeter were out, and they’re definitely not out.
“What you learn in Europe is that it goes down to that last game and before we get to that we’ve got Gloucester away and there’s three inter-provincial derbies in front of that game.
“So it’s going to be a balancing act in the next few weeks to alternate your squad according to the IRFU player management, we’ve got to rest certain guys.”
A late flight out of Toulouse means the southern province effectively have a five-day turnaround before travelling to meet their rivals in the north. So the likes of Peter O’Mahony, CJ Stander, Conor Murray and Joey Carbery may have to wait before getting a chance to vent the frustrations of the weekend. Leinster at home should do.
“We are (top of the pool), we still are and that’s where you want to be,” says O’Mahony, “it’s an incredibly competitive and difficult group and the last two days have blown it open again.
We had an opportunity to really get a hold of it and grab it by the neck. We weren’t good enough to do it.
“It’s going to be two huge games in the Christmas inter-pros.”
Subscribe to our new podcast, Heineken Rugby Weekly on The42, here:
I think Barnes wasn’t good enough
@rowan hill: rubbish. We got bullied plain and simple.
@rowan hill: yes Barnes was very poor but we played against 14 men for 20 mins and couldn’t capitalise. We can’t blame the ref for this loss I’m afraid, he didn’t help but still…
Munster weren’t good enough but they will learn from it. Games like that are character building and will stand to the squad for the rest of the season. There were plenty of positives to take from it but I think munster were probably guilty of underestimating castres. I certainly did anyway. I did think Barnes had a good game despite one or two decisions not being right.
@Jim Demps: Yes, I don’t blame Barnes but I would have questions over the TMO. However, if we kicked our pens, we would have won the game and it really boils down to that. The game plan was obviously to try build a score throughout and we just didn’t execute.
@Dave Russell: I said that after the match as well. V poor from the TMO. I could see the gouge from the tv at home. How he couldn’t find it is beyond me.
Yeah maybe so but they both looked at the Conway try that wasn’t and neither of them seemed to think the defender did anything wrong????
At the end of the day if that ball was knocked on by Conway it because it was kicked out of his hands!!!
@Jim Demps: You learn something from every game but in fairness Jim, Munster had a similarly poor away performance against Castres last year too.
The hallmarks of last year’s performance were poor penalty concessions, blunt attack and failing to take chances that presented themselves.
With all those problems arising again last Saturday, I’d argue that Munster showed that they’ve learned very little in the year that’s passed since the two teams have played. Maybe there were a few less stupid penalty concessions but Scannell tackling a moving maul was right up there with what happened the year before.
@EK: maybe castres away is a difficult place to go is what we’ve learned. They are French champions after all.
@Jim Demps: I don’t agree but if that’s your opinion then fair enough. Regardless of whether Castres are French champions or not, I think Munster should have beaten them with the players and opportunities they had.
@EK: yes I think munster should have beaten them. We had enough chances and enough firepower on the park to do it so no excuses there. I’m just saying that perhaps some were guilty of underestimating the task at hand.
@Damian McKeever: Don’t want to get into semantics but it wasn’t kicked out of his hands, he was fouled while trying to gather the ball. The Castres player slid into Conways legs with his knees. Conway prob would have knocked on anyway but it still should have been a pen which could/should have given Munster the lead.
. I have an issue with the selection of Carbury ahead of JJ (MOTM ) as my belief is you earn your selection irrespective of who you are and secondly I’m not sure those weather conditions suited Carbury. I have seen him play superbly on a dry hard pitch but I think the management would have known about the weather beforehand. Also I think the game management ( POM) i.e. penalty choices were strange and not Munster of old. Chip away at the score and doubt spreads through the opposition ( note the number of infringements by Castre when it became a one point game ! )
@Greg McInerney: JJ has had numerous games that were far worse than what Joey produced on Saturday. He played well against the Castres u14s the week before, but he still couldn’t kick show off a rope. How many kicks did he mess up against Castres. Joey is your no1 10, so he plays every big game. If your hoping for JJ to save ya, then Munster will not win feck all for years to come
@Greg McInerney: Carbery was very poor as he was for Ireland against USA. Castre both bullied and beat Munster. It made me wonder. Would they have gotten away with it if Claw, Leamy, Galwey or O’Connell were playing?
Peter has questions to ask and answer of himself as captain atm. His leadership and decision making isn’t currently where it should be. If he made that decision just before half time then he was unprofessional, if he didn’t then someone else was on his watch. Either way it is unacceptable to be unprofessional at this level. Our coaching team have also let us down over the last while. Our lineout and maul have been very poor and our breakdown as bad. Even our passing has been terrible. Joey was left out there for far too long, Murray taking a goal kick from distance with Rory Scannell looking on, the lack of urgency for the BP last week. It goes on and on..
@tim dawson: not getting the try bonus point last week could come back to haunt ya. That was a piss poor Castres team that came over. A try bonus point was certainly for any other top team.
@William Finnegan: anything nice to say.
@st: yeah I hope and still think Munster will top the group
@William Finnegan: good man William.
A lot of negativity on here on what was undoubtedly a disappointing result. Munster still in the driving seat to win the group, but the one thing that rankled from this game was the poor decision-making on view at various key moments – the tap & go before HT and Scannell not taking the penalty Murray missed. Is the coaching team too callow to call out on-field mistakes as they are being made by senior players?
No citings ?