Mark McCall’s decision that Saracens should “prioritise the Premiership” by resting their England cohort for next Saturday’s Round of 16 tie in Toulon is a bad look for both the three-time winners and the Champions Cup. But it’s not something Munster would remotely countenance ahead of their tie in La Rochelle next Saturday (kick-off 5.30pm Irish time).
The two-time champions are pretty much in exactly the same position in that the URC offers more promise whereas they are in the same half of the draw as Saracens and facing a raft of French heavyweights away.
Munster’s ‘reward’ were they to overcome La Rochelle would quite likely be a quarter-final away to Bordeaux/Bègles a week later, not to mention a potential trek to Toulouse awaiting in the semi-finals.
“Never considered it, being honest with you,” said Munster attack coach Mike Prendergast after the squad’s Tuesday training session in Limerick.
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“Because we value this competition so much in terms of how long you look back over it, and how this competition’s been associated with Munster,” he added, also citing their returning internationals such as Craig Casey, Oli Jager, Jean Kleyn and Niall Scannell in last Saturday’s win over Connacht, with Peter O’Mahony and Thaakir Abrahams also in the mix this week.
Albeit John Hodnett is a doubt (dead leg), Seán O’Brien is a midfield option if Munster’s appeal against Alex Nankivell’s red card in the win over Connacht is unsuccessful.
“But even outside that we didn’t have the conversation. It was always going to be ‘we’re going to send our best team down there’,” said Prendergast, also pointing to their improved performances away to Glasgow and Connacht, as well as Munster’s strong end-of-season form over the previous two campaigns.
But the bottom line is that Munster’s fabled history with what was once the Heineken Cup simply demands nothing less than their best.
“Absolutely, first and foremost, Champions Cup,” said Prendergast. “La Rochelle could be speaking the same language, but they’re naturally going to go after both competitions as well.”
La Rochelle’s winless run was extended to eight games by last Saturday’s 33-19 loss away to Clermont and Prendergast acknowledged their confidence might be low, though he said: “The scoreline was quite severe but the performance was a lot better.”
He also noted the returning Pierre Bourgarit, Uini Atonio and Will Skelton, and anticipates Gregory Alldritt and Brice Dulin will return this week. La Rochelle have also won this competition twice in the last three seasons and will be at home.
“They have power athletes, they have a very, very strong set-piece; the top scrum in the [Top 14] competition. They’re very strong at maul time and I remember years ago when I was in Grenoble a ‘gratteur’ is a poacher – La Rochelle had about 13 gratteurs across the squad and it’s the same this week.
“If they find that early in the game, that’s where their crowd gets behind them. But the other side of the coin is that we can have influence on that as well, how we perform.”
And while he won’t be playing, there will be a Ronan O’Gara factor.
Prendergast and O’Gara know each other since their school days, the former and David Wallace having been part of a Crescent Comprehensive team beaten 14-7 in a Munster final by a PBC Cork team featuring the current La Rochelle coach Mick O’Driscoll and Anthony Horgan, as well as Peter Stringer on the bench.
The two chatted on Monday, as they do every week, and Prendergast believes O’Gara’s relationship-building has been key to his remarkable success in French rugby.
“His ability to connect and to make relationships with lads, that’s what stands to you being a foreign coach going into France. Obviously he’s a smart guy, he got the language quite quickly as well. It’s easy to connect with the foreign boys over there because you have each other, the key is then to connect and make relationships with the French players.
“He’s very straight up, he’s very honest with them and he just has done that from day one. Even talking to the Racing players when I went in after him, they had huge admiration, huge time for him.
“He also wears his heart on his sleeve, and the French love that. So for me it’s his ability to connect with people and with players. First, it’s the person and then it’s the player, and that works. I think that works anywhere now but to be able to do it in a different country is a challenge, but when you do it and you get it right, we’ve seen it over a couple of years, they’ll run through a wall for you and that’s what they’ve effectively done for Rog.
Prendergast also said he has “parked” his disappointment over Munster preferring Clayton MacMillan as their next head coach and sees the positives in working under a Kiwi for the first time.
Meanwhile, Tadhg Beirne has vehemently denied that he and Andrew Porter sought to intentionally injure Antoine Dupont in the incident which led him suffering a ruptured ACL in his side’s Six Nations win over Ireland in February.
“Obviously you can slow it down and it can look bad but the incident wasn’t intentional. I never intended to injure him, the last thing I want to do is injure the best player in the world.”
“You don’t go out there to injure anyone. It was just unfortunate the way it happened and I’m sorry for the fact that it did happen to him, you don’t like to see that happen to any player.”
“But the backlash that myself and Porter and our families got afterwards was probably enough punishment for us on its own.”
