2 weeks Ago
MUNSTER’S PLAYERS WILL wake up today with a deep sense of frustration and regret. Few would make the argument the province are a better team than Bordeaux-Begles, but a tidier first-half performance at the Stade Chaban-Delmas yesterday might have put them in a position to really test their hosts. Rugby players love to speak about controlling the things directly under their own control, and against a Bordeaux side who thrive on transition play, Munster let go of the steering while as their game slided into absolute chaos.
Their handling was poor and their lineout became a major problem – only running at 57% for the day. By 35 minutes they were trailing 29-3, with all four of Bordeaux’s tries starting with a Munster error as the source. Munster will feel that was a mess entirely of their own making.
Across the 80 minutes Munster conceded 20 turnovers to Bordeaux’s five, and also missed 30 tackles How quickly it all fell apart. Munster had started well, threatening down the left wing before the ball was knocked on. It was a promising opening but they were soon being ripped to pieces by a ravenous Bordeaux team.
“Do you know what, I think the first play of the game gave us a bit of confidence knowing that if we could hold on to the ball, we could play some rugby,” said Munster captain Tadhg Beirne. “But no matter how many dropped balls or whatever, you just seem to be back camped on your own 5m line because their backline is lethal, the pace they have, they’re a serious outfit. “You kind of just have to stick in it.
They’re a team that when they’re on it, they’re unbelievably good, and then (they come at you) in waves at times, and you have to capitalise if they do dip at all and we weren’t able to do that enough today.” From 29-10 down at half-time, Munster did manage to give their supporters the faintest hint of belief in the second period, adding three tries. That spirited effort was important in that it avoided the game being a total write off for Munster, but Bordeaux always had them at arm’s length.
“I thought the fight was incredible at the end,” Beirne continued. “First half, we just couldn’t hold on to the ball and I think that’s something we’ll be really frustrated with because I think when we did hold on to the ball, we showed what we could do. Some forced offloads or knock-ons and then probably the thing that sticks out most is unfortunately our lineout didn’t function very well today and there’s lots of reasons for that, but you also have to give credit to Bordeaux in terms of how they defended it as well.
” Those lineout issues were the obvious sore point for Beirne. “They got in the air very well and we knew they were a big aerial threat. They mirror very well, but there was a lot of errors, whether it was poor calls for me or individual errors in the lineout as well and when you’re at this level of competition, if your lineout doesn’t function when you have as many lineouts as we did, you’re going to be fighting an uphill battle.
“Obviously I call the lineout so that’s going to be a thing that sticks out for me particularly, but overall you’ve got to just say the class of Bordeaux was there. You saw it from a lot of very good tries on turnover ball and all that, but we just came up short.” As Munster’s lineout caller Beirne found himself trying to problem solve on the field, but explained they didn’t try to drastically change what they were doing at the setpiece.
“We kind of ran out of four-mans, and then there were just a few calls that went wrong in terms of individual errors, but whether the call was right, we may have won it, and then they defended a few good ones as well. “So you kind of just have to stick to the process. We’ll go back, we’ll reflect on it, I’m sure Codders [Alec Codling, lineout coach] will come back in and tell me where I went wrong as well.
He’s been a massive help for us, we just have to review the game and get better from it.”.
