Nine days ago Munster faced a pivotal couple of games in their season, when successive defeats would have ended their interest in Europe before the quarter-finals for the third season running and left them with little hope of a home tie in the last eight of the URC. It could have been a grim endgame for their coaching ticket.
Instead, back-to-back wins over Exeter and away to Ulster last Friday night have secured both a home quarter-final against Toulouse and elevated them to third in the URC table, thus creating the possibility of a return to Thomond Park a month after the Ed Sheeran concerts.
“That would be brilliant,” admitted Johann van Graan, whose side face Cardiff at Musgrave Park next Friday and finish off their regular season campaign against Leinster at the Aviva Stadium on May 21st.
“If you look back to the last two or three years Munster-Cardiff games have been pretty close affairs. We go back to Cork and we love to play in Cork on that surface and in front of the Cork crowd and it will be another big game in seven days’ time and then we’ve got a big game after that one.”
There remain countless possibilities with just two rounds to go, with the second-placed Stormers just four points ahead of the Bulls in eighth place.
“It’s literally going to come down to the last and I think that’s brilliant for the competition. The fact that there’s going to be magic moments and big moments in the coming weeks and it’s literally who can hold their nerve ‘til that final whistle goes.”
Last Friday's deserved 24-17 win in Belfast came at a potential cost, with opensides John Hodnett suffering knee and neck injuries, although in advance of their late-night drive back to Limerick, their head coach said it was "a very happy war zone in the changing room after what we've gone through in the last few weeks."
Munster had been partly obliged to make seven changes whereas Ulster retained 10 of the side which had suffered a painful Euro exit at the hands of Toulouse and both in the stands and on the pitch it felt like the home side were suffering a hangover.
“Maybe, I don’t know,” said Dan McFarland as to whether that was the case, but admitted: “I can only look at the actions on the pitch, and I felt that there wasn’t the intensity running onto the ball that we needed in attack that would have created the quick ball that we needed to get the ball to the edges, to find the space that Munster sometimes leave.
“I didn’t feel that in defence we had the intensity of speed and movement to be able to fill the field, and get the tackles we needed to slow down their ball. There were bits of pieces that went against us in the game, we didn’t get the bounce of the ball on a number of occasions in the first half where little things like that can help you change the momentum of the game.”
The defeat saw Ulster drop from second to fifth in advance of facing seventh-placed Edinburgh away next Saturday before a two-week break prior to finishing off their regular season campaign at home to the Sharks, currently fourth, on Friday, May 20th.
So, no less than Munster, they could finish anywhere from second to eighth, and an away quarter-final would not be desirable.
No, obviously not. It’s pretty apparent that you want to finish top four or top two. We all know what’s on the line, the fact is we need to improve some areas of our game if we’re able to do that, and we don’t have long to do it.
