Leinster head coach Leo Cullen was happy to collect a bonus-point victory against Munster, a sixth in as many United Rugby Championship matches this season, but acknowledged that there were plenty of performance imperfections. It will make for an uncomfortable player review process.
The home side lacked patience and precision at times, particularly in the first half, spurning half a dozen gilt-edged try-scoring chances, that required no more than a modicum of clarity in decision-making and composure in execution to deliver the desired dividend. Munster showed great heart and determination to stay in the fight only to be ultimately undone by injuries, and a spiralling error-rate induced by fatigue.
They played the game a man down for 20 minutes and it was one of those incidents, a yellow card for Munster secondrow Jean Kleyn as he jumped to block a chip and caught Jamie Osborne with an elbow that Cullen believes requires further explanation.
When asked about the young Leinster wing, Cullen said: “He was struggling there, yeah. It’s a fair old impact he took, I’m sure ye’ve all seen it.”
The Leinster coach was then asked, was a yellow enough? He replied: “What do you think?” before continuing “I’m curious, I’ll find out exactly what the official line is on it. We’ll find out. Again, there are lots of decisions in the game, which I’ll always ask the question because I honestly don’t know.
“There are certain things that happened in the game I’m questioning, so I’ll ask that array of questions like we normally would. There was a lot in that game, lots going on, certain things I’m thinking ‘why are we not getting these calls? Why are certain calls going against us?’ We’ll ask the questions.”
Leinster lost Tadhg Furlong before the game, but the issue is a relatively minor one according to Cullen. “Tadhg is okay. He rolled his ankle on Thursday. When we were here yesterday, I thought he would be okay. He didn’t do the team run. He woke this morning and there was still a bit of swelling, so it was the right decision, it wasn’t worth the risk.”
In terms of a general overview Cullen said: “We are delighted to get a bonus-point win. There are parts of the game that we can look back on where we create a lot of opportunities in the first half but we are not particularly clinical in terms of finishing them off.
“We are probably just a little bit impatient at times. We are forcing certain things and we are falling on the wrong side of some calls with the officials. It is the composure part that we are lacking. Having said that, to come away with four tries, is a positive outcome for us.
“You have to give Munster a huge amount of credit. You see them there at the end in terms of battered bodies coming off the field. They kept throwing everything at us which is what you want to see in a provincial derby game.
“They have a lot of young guys there in their 23, they have a fair few injuries leading into the game. I thought they dug in and scrambled unbelievably well. They scrapped for everything, particularly close to the goal-line. We weren’t quite accurate enough so some of it is in our control.”
Munster head coach Graham Rowntree expressed his admiration for the spirit and application that his young side demonstrated and the way they refused to buckle in adversity. “I’m proud of the lads. I just told there, I’m proud of them. There’s a sombre mood in there, some young men who wanted to do better. I thought they deserved better than the final scoreline. I asked them to fight, keep fighting, get off the floor, keep fighting. I asked them to be brave and they did that.
“I thought they deserved more from that game. They managed the yellow cards quite well. [It was] a tight game at half-time and then we had a raft of injuries, which didn’t help momentum. And then a couple of key opportunities where we gave them access to our 22 and they are exceptional there.
A few more names, Joey Carbery (shoulder), Jack O’Sullivan (leg), Jean Kleyn (leg) and Liam Coombes were added to an already extensive injury list prior to the game. Rowntree confirmed that it would be a couple of days before he would know his playing resources for next weekend’s game against Ulster at Thomond Park.
He acknowledged that the defeat, a fourth in six matches, left them in a tough position ahead of another interprovincial derby. “Yeah, it does and that’s undeniable, but we drive on. We keep improving. I’m seeing elements of our game coming through, elements of how we are training coming through as I did last week.
“We keep driving that and look at what we can do better. It’s been challenging. The injury list has been mounting. Everyone gets injuries, I’m not blaming that, it’s a fact. There’s a lot of young men there having to step up and they’re learning. They’ll be better for it. We’ll have a very honest review again and we drive on.”
