Kingspan Stadium, Friday evening. The coaches’ box.
The impassive faces of Johann van Graan and Stephen Larkham were surely hiding deeper emotions. Together with JP Ferreira they are now about to saddle up and leave town - perhaps not to a fanfare of fond farewell from the Red Army, more likely under the cover of darkness.
As they look back over their shoulders they cannot avoid reality - mission failure. Munster have come up short in both the Champions Cup and now the URC. No matter how you slice it, a poor season; history will judge their tenure accurately, if not kindly.
It was not pretty, inconveniently, the worst had been saved to the last - Munster were awful. Yes, the players were error prone, but, if that’s the best a coaching group can come up with after all this time, then something is most seriously amiss. If Peter O’Mahony’s V8 engine isn’t firing perfectly on all cylinders others around him can splutter; expecting huge, heroic performances from him every day, as against Toulouse, is hoping for the impossible. His influence on that team performance in the Aviva was, with no doubt, the key cornerstone for it.
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It confirmed, too, the opinion of many that the head coach should have been cut loose when he announced his move to Bath, and Graham Rowntree installed immediately. Rowntree and his new coaching ticket we can be sure, can’t wait to get into the groove, but time has been lost, and more of it will now be needed.
In contrast, Dan McFarland’s Ulster were inventively impressive, playing with an assuredness which comes from knowing the game plan inside out, their execution was generally first class. John Cooney, Robert Baloucoune and, particularly, the excellent James Hume, will no doubt come up for discussion before Andy Farrell finalises his squad for New Zealand. By a similar token, some Munster men will have slid down the ratings.
The Munster defence, it must be said, helped out from time to time. When Hume took a quick tap 10 metres from the Munster posts, three or four defenders were already needlessly rushing from their goal-line line to join in a little skirmish on the 22, which had nothing to do with them. Had nobody told them all of that’s a complete no-no? Hume passed to Cooney who whizzed in for the easiest touch down, seven points.
Should referee Jaco Peyper have stopped the quick tap to deal with the scuffle? I’m not sure he was even aware of it, and he had not stopped play. Once upon a time, someone said ‘play to the whistle,’ another simple lesson that Munster, unlike most schoolboys in the land, hadn’t heard.
Later on, Craig Casey left the side of the scrum, positioning himself illegally in midfield he stuck out like a sore thumb to the officials, and the penalty to Ulster was the simplest of decisions. But again, Casey should have known better.
Peyper had a good match, completely at ease, he didn’t miss much, although he will look back at a glaring off-side by an ‘always on the margins’ Iain Henderson which surely needed his attention. Ulster fullback Stewart Moore gave the match officials plenty of food for thought as he plunged over a defensive goal-line tackle. A very close call, but the ball had not been dropped, and the referee, together with TMO Marius van der Westhuizen, came up with right answer, try awarded. All in all, better officiating than - too often - we’ve endured in this competition.
Liberally sprinkled with internationals, Glasgow came to the RDS with, one must suppose, some sort of belief that they could beat Leinster. They owned the ball for the opening ten minutes, and, flattering to deceive, went seven points ahead. That was pretty much the last we saw of them. Leinster mesmerised with their speed of movement and offloading against a team who took the beating of all beatings, the 76 points conceded included 12 tries.
It was all a shocking embarrassment for the Scottish team, and equally so for the competition, matches of this ilk are no good for anybody, even the winners. Battered and bruised, physically and mentally, by the constant onslaught, there were suspicions that the towel was thrown in long before the end. A boxing referee would have signalled enough was enough, and led them back to their corner for much needed attention.
Referee Andrea Piardi is an interesting prospect, but with quite a way to go. He misread, and too hastily decided that Richie Gray’s forearm to the face of Jamison Gibson-Park did not need any attention. Fortunately, the TMO put it up for review, and Gray was sent to kick his heels for 10 minutes.
Leinster supporters, who, probably wisely, stayed away in droves from the Glasgow match, will undoubtedly return in huge numbers next weekend.
That will be against South Africa’s Bulls who earned the right by beating the Sharks in an epic match. While I can only claim to have watched snippets, it went right down to the wire, a breathtaking finish, with the teams tied on 27 points each. Extra-time was a nano-second away, when they conjured up field position for a winning drop goal, with Andy Brace’s whistle immediately signalling that was indeed the final act.
Leinster might well be on the way to five tournament wins in a row, but they will face a different, very physical, can of worms in the semi-final. The Bulls will study carefully the La Rochelle methodology in the Champions Cup final, and will attack the Leinster pack and the breakdown in a similar fashion. They are not travelling North to lose.
