On Friday night Munster host Ulster at Thomond Park (kick-off 7.35pm) and while these provincial rivals have met many times and in bigger games, such as quarter-finals of both the Champions Cup and the United Rugby Championship (URC), rarely have the implications of the outcome been so significant.
Entering this weekend’s penultimate round, both sit outside the top-eight playoffs and qualification for next season’s Champions Cup; Munster are in ninth on 41 points and Ulster in 12th on 38. Previously ever present in the Champions Cup, one or conceivably both will be highly likely to be missing from the competition next season for the first time in 31 years.
They’ve each been in a pickle like this once before. Back in the 2015-16 season, Munster went into their final two games at home to Edinburgh in Cork and the Scarlets in Limerick needing to win both to ensure a top-six finish and the last qualifying place for the Champions Cup.
Where do Leinster go next after more Champions Cup heartache?
On a palpably tense Friday evening in front of a sold-out Musgrave Park, a 77th-minute try by Francis Saili sealed a 27-19 bonus-point win over Edinburgh before Munster’s 31-15 victory over the Scarlets a week later.
In the 2017-18 season, during which there was the resignation of Les Kiss and the arrival and departure of Jono Gibbes among other off-field issues, Ulster needed to win two of their last three matches just to secure a home playoff against the Ospreys for the last qualifying place in the Champions Cup.
Despite Alun Wyn Jones’s early try, a Craig Gilroy double, another by Kieran Treadwell and a late Jacob Stockdale intercept try ensured a 27-19 win.
But never before have both been in such jeopardy together and in advance of a crunch clash between the two.
Munster are below Benetton with the same total of 41 points due to the Italians having won more games. But, as they host the Treviso-based outfit on Friday week in Musgrave Park, Munster at least have their destiny in their own hands.
But they probably have to win both their remaining matches to ensure a top-eight finish, while Ulster simply have to win in Thomond Park and away to Edinburgh the following Friday to make the playoffs and qualify for next season’s Champions Cup.
To all intents and purposes, therefore, this Friday’s clash is win-or-bust for both of them.
How did it come to this?
After all, since the advent of the South Africans joining and the creation of the URC in 2021, neither Munster nor Ulster have finished outside the top six in the three seasons since.
Indeed, three seasons ago Ulster finished third and Munster sixth to set up a quarter-final in the Kingspan Stadium, which the home side won 36-17. A week later, but for an 85th-minute try by the Stormers’ outside back Warrick Gelant which Manie Libbok converted for a 17-15 win, Ulster would have hosted the Bulls in Belfast in the final.
If that was the one that got away for Ulster in their attempt to win a first trophy since the 2005-06 Celtic League, the following season Munster ended an 11-year trophy drought when winning the URC by beating Glasgow, Leinster and the Stormers away.
Ulster had actually finished second before losing at home to Connacht in the quarter-finals, while Munster had finished fifth. Last season, Munster topped the regular season table only to lose a home semi-final against Glasgow, while Ulster finished sixth before losing to Leinster in the quarter-finals.
For sure, the South African sides are becoming more acclimatised and the Welsh regions have had a rebirth, but there’s no doubt that all bar Leinster of the Irish provinces have underperformed – their results against all-comers worsening.
In the last three seasons, neither Munster or Ulster won less than 10 matches, or lost more than seven. But this season, after 16 games, each of them has won just seven and lost nine matches.
Any campaign can be a snapshot in history and the margins between the bulk of the URC teams are quite close: witness the 11 points between Cardiff in fifth and Connacht in 14th. Yet Connacht have beaten Cardiff twice in the Challenge Cup and once in the URC this season.
Furthermore, the season after their brush with the Challenge Cup, an emotionally charged campaign under Rassie Erasmus following the death of Anthony Foley ended with Munster topping the regular season table, winning 19 games out of 22.
Similarly, after Ulster’s playoff win over the Ospreys in May 2018, Dan McFarland arrived the following season. Jared Payne, Tommy Bowe, Andrew Trimble and Chris Henry all retired and Charles Piutau departed. But the arrival of Billy Burns, Marty Moore, Jordi Murphy and Will Addison, along with the emergence of the home-grown Robert Baloucoune, James Hume, Michael Lowry and Marcus Rea, saw Ulster reach the quarter-finals of the Champions Cup and semi-finals of the Pro14.
The worry for both Munster and Ulster is that the “ins” and “outs” of the last two or three close-seasons have evidently not strengthened either squad, especially when you look at the stardust that left Munster last summer – Simon Zebo, Joey Carbery, Antoine Frisch and RG Snyman – and as budgets are being tightened.
There is undoubted talent coming through in both provinces, but against that Peter O’Mahony and Conor Murray will each bid their Thomond Park and Musgrave Park farewells over the next two Fridays.
These are disconcerting times for Munster and Ulster, not least when they meet on Friday in the URC.
