Munster head coach Graham Rowntree was unable to shed any light on the reasons for Peter O’Mahony gingerly departing from his side’s Champions Cup defeat at home to Northampton in the 66th minute.
Although he didn’t appear too discomfited as the returned the crowd’s applause, it will be at least of moderate concern to Andy Farrell a fortnight out from Ireland’s opening Six Nations game against France in Marseille on foot of him appointing O’Mahony as captain
“We’ll get an injury report tomorrow,” said Rowntree in the immediate aftermath of the 26-23 loss. “Pete’s got a couple of little bangs there. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.”
Rowntree did confirm that lock Tom Ahern, who has been included as one of three training additions to the 34-man squad which travels to Portugal next Wednesday, would spend the night in hospital.
How Britain’s prison system is teetering on the brink of collapse
Christmas TV and movie guide: the best shows and films to watch
Laura Kennedy: We like the ideal of Christmas. The reality, though, is often strained, sad and weird
Fostering at Christmas: ‘We once had two boys, age 9 and 11, who had never had a Christmas tree’
Ahern was taken off on a motorised stretcher after twice being hit on the head by the knees of Curtis Langdon in the 40th minute, which led to the Northampton hooker being sent off.
“Tom, we’ll see tomorrow. He’s going to spend the night in hospital. We’ll get a report on him tomorrow.”
Rowntree was in a particularly glum mood after this defeat capped off a curate’s egg, though ultimately disappointing, pool campaign as he repeatedly admitted that they lost their way.
“We, [Tadhg Beirne] particularly, spoke at half-time about how it wasn’t just going to happen against 14 men. Second-half we came out and immediately gave some soft penalties away. And then we were doing things that we had spoken about not doing with the ball, running when we meant to kick and kicking when we meant to run.
“The game just got away from us a bit, we were playing into the wind, and they grew a leg, didn’t they? We just lost our way.”
As with the home draw against Bayonne and the loss in Exeter, Munster were in a winning position when they led 20-10 with half an hour to go against 14 men.
“We have got to be better at managing the conditions. That’s been proven over the last few weeks. A week ago we were in the sun, high ball in play and look at the conditions today against 14 men in the second half and we just lost our way, what we were doing with the ball, we lost our way. I’ve got nothing more technical than that at the moment.”
His captain Beirne, echoed Rowntree’s thoughts.
“We spoke in those huddles about how we were making a lot of errors and giving away penalties. I spoke before the game about not backing up penalties, and when we got down to the last quarter that’s what we were doing, giving them ins constantly and turning over the ball.
“We were trying to come together and talk about being clear and smarter with the ball, but as Wig [Rowntree] said we still have a bit to learn about managing those conditions better. It’s not just been today, it’s been Connacht, Exeter, Leinster on Stephen’s Day.
“They’re all games where conditions were against us and we just didn’t play the conditions well enough. We seriously need to sit down and actually properly learn from those, because we don’t want to be sat here saying the same thing again.
As for the decision to opt for a penalty when leading 20-16 on 63 minutes rather than go to the corner, Beirne said: “We’d a quick conversation about it, but the three put us seven ahead and Crowley was confident about putting it over, so we wanted to take the points, to give us a bit more breathing space.
“It felt like we could go up the pitch again, if felt like we were very much in control there. Things started to go against us after that moment I think, there were a few turning points in the game.”
- Sign up for push alerts and have the best news, analysis and comment delivered directly to your phone
- Find The Irish Times on WhatsApp and stay up to date
- Our In The News podcast is now published daily – Find the latest episode here
