Munster in the Aviva, August 22nd, 7.35pm KO

[LeRouxIsPHat]

great experience for Baird. Imagine the praise heaped upon him by Toland if he were in red. Doris is definitely more effective at 8 though he did have a better 2nd half. VDF was his usual quietly brilliant self.

Casey looks like a super 9 and he will give Murray a run for his money. Stander is by far Munster's best forward, they'd be lost without him

Don’t disagree but I thought it was a good and encouraging performance from Murray. He still didn’t break much but his passing, kicking, and speed to the breakdown looked pretty good to me.

[hugonaut]

I think Munster will come out of that one a lot happier than we will. The way we play means it’s going to take us longer to get back to that level of fluidity.

Also, how much better are Munster with Casey? They didn’t have a fluent attack until he came on.

No, I think we'll be happier. We won.

It was a neutral venue with no fans in what was supposed to be a home game for us. They've added two World Cup winners to their team and we were down two [actually] world class forwards in Furlong and Ryan. Despite that, we were the overdogs.

You have to take into account the injuries when you are looking back at a game. We've lost DK – in an area where we are pretty skinny – but they have picked up injuries to Snyman, Kilcoyne, and Kleyn.

We took charge of the game when we went up 24-13 on 50-ish minutes and it was a bizarre decision from ref Brace [who is a good ref, but I felt was harsh on us this evening - 17-9 penalty count!] to yellow-card Dev. He didn't pull Stander down. He got a hand to the ball between Stander's hands, and it was a crooked throw or he wouldn't even have had to stretch across. He was also on the pitch for about 7-8 minutes at the time, so he had no priors. It wasn't in a threatening position. A very weird call to yellow-card somebody who is just on the pitch for a non-penalty offence.

They bagged a couple of tries in the ten minutes he was in the bin, both on the wings when they had stretched 14 men.

We conceded 108 penalties in our first 13 league games [an average of just over 8/game] and conceded 17 in our first game back. Obviously we'll look to our own discipline first, but I'd have to say that I thought we were harshly dealt.

To me, a surprising winner from that game was somebody not even on the pitch, RK. Larmour was really weak under bombs, excellent going forward. With DK out, it's the obvious game to put Larmour back on the wing and bring in RK at FB.

[ronk]

Would have been going mental if we kicked it out, the losing bonus pt is no use to them, it was surrender monkey stuff

A losing bonus point qualified Munster mathematically for the Heineken Cup.

[Oldschoolsocks]

great experience for Baird. Imagine the praise heaped upon him by Toland if he were in red. Doris is definitely more effective at 8 though he did have a better 2nd half. VDF was his usual quietly brilliant self.

Casey looks like a super 9 and he will give Murray a run for his money. Stander is by far Munster's best forward, they'd be lost without him

He may have to move to get gametime...

[blockhead]

Surrender monkeys
[/quote

TBF its not the first time they've thrown in the towel against us. Mental block? That's 7 wins out of 8.
Rivalry?

Not a game to be over analysed. Better though than expected.

[Blueberry]

Would have been going mental if we kicked it out, the losing bonus pt is no use to them, it was surrender monkey stuff

A losing bonus point qualified Munster mathematically for the Heineken Cup.

Like they were thinking about that....they play connacht next week if they can't get a point v Connacht they have no place in the hcup....it was pathetic, 2 pts down - all you need to do is play a few phases, perhaps get a penalty, hoof it down the sideline and just maybe you can squeeze another penalty and win the game.

Spinless and stupid stuff whoever made the call. I hope Connacht roast them next week and all going well they miss out on the semi. Really don't want to play them again and have to sit through all the Munstery cr@p again.

[Twist]

Only just after seeing the game on TG4. Ringrose looked like MOTM to me. The lineout is a worry and Dev’s yellow was harsh.

Really bad luck for Dave Kearney. I thought he looked like his excellent pre-covid form was holding. Ryan Baird looks to have the strength for second row, which I wasn’t sure about. Our scrum went better than I expected.

For them, DDA has pace to go with his strength but he’s more interested in mewling at the referee. Ridiculous considering how heavily the pen count was skewed in their favour.

Murray took Luke McG out really cynically just as DK pulled up, dunno how it was missed. Stander is carrying their pack. He was immense.

[Blueberry]

TMO was self isolating with a face nappy over his eyes.....missed loads during the game.....

[alanair]

TMO was self isolating with a face nappy over his eyes.....missed loads during the game.....

And was the only ‘Leinster’ official on duty....but in fairness is really only relied on ( at PRO14 level) where there is some doubt in scoring of try

[Gearzbox2]

Great to have the rugby back up and running
Was pleasantly surprised by the standard all things considered, 6 months not playing and it’s near impossible to replicate game intensity so all things considered it was ok

Line out was borderline shocking, kelleher getting a free pass on here in my opinion, yes there was some bad calling but he over threw at least 2 and under threw another
Baird has a long way to go in that department and needs to be joined at the hip with Dev

Scrum was very good, defence was ok and attack stuttered and stopped at times
Few lads looked unbelievably sharp re: Ringrose JS JC JVDF DK

Side note, Lowe was appalling I’m sorry, nearly blocked twice in 20 seconds, thrown the ball into touch and was poor in defence...needs to shape up imo

Hopefully DK ok, took up where he left off pre covid, very sharp

Bench was ok, didn’t add much, need more there going forward...Devs sin binning probably didn’t help with the cohesion there

Probably loads of changes next week

[riocard911]

Yes, Ringrose was very good, but personally I would have given MOTM to Johnny Sexton. He led from the front, interacted well with the ref, got all his kicks and it was his choke tackle, holding up whoever it was despite massive hits coming in from all angles, that won us the scrum from which the Lowe try was scored. Legend!!!!!

[ronk]

Munster have improved their red zone attack. Their tries came from well executed moves with misdirection in close and attack out wide. Clearly something they’ve done a lot of work on. Murray executed well. With power inside and steppers outside, this seems to be a plan we’ll see more of.

After we scored our last try the ref came down hard on us but wasn’t able to do enough. Anyone catch what the extra 10 yards were for?

Stander was immense for them, he’s been improving his groundhog work for years, now it’s a strength.

Baird became more prominent as the game went on, seemed to be more confident. Doris too. I felt both sides were flagging a bit at 60 minutes but we lifted it back up once we needed to.

Lineout is a big work on but it’s the first game in 6 months so you’ll take that.

The Deegan gamble didn’t work out

[Experimental]

Dev MOTM for his intercept at the end! Ah no in all seriousness Ringrose clearly shone above the rest. Toland is painful to listen to...

[Blueberry]

Toland is world class Not..........

[munster#1]

It was great to finally get to watch some rugby again, even if it’s only on the tele.

Just as I thought, the team with the least unforced errors lost.
Losing Snyman and Killer so early in the game was a massive blow for Munster, especially with Cronin being a late withdrawal.

From a Munster perspective CJ and Farrell were excellent, and JJ was very good.
Casey coming on really upped the tempo, I would like to see him come on earlier in the next game.
Munster played some very good rugby at times, and even with Snyman gone, they made Leinster’s life hell in the lineout.
Handling left Munster down. They either dropped the ball or gave a poor pass far too many times to win that game.
IMO the score line flattered Munster a bit, not that their 3 tries weren’t deserved, but I think Leinster should have been ahead by more.

I don’t think Leinster will be overjoyed by their performance, especially with how well Saracens are going right now.
But, for a first game back it was a good spectacle.

Congratulations on the win.
Hopefully Munster can turn it around in the semi.

[ronk]

.

Murray took Luke McG out really cynically just as DK pulled up, dunno how it was missed. Stander is carrying their pack. He was immense.

It wasn't missed. Ref saw it and called it a fair shoulder to shoulder. Murray was running away from the ball so it was obviously a nonsense call.

But if he calls it he's under pressure to issue a yellow card.

[Blueberry]

Suspect the ref got a good talking to from Clancy at half time as his red tinged glasses became noticeable more red tinged in the second half....Clancy showed him how to do things with that Sexton kick to the corner and told Brace to up his game.....yes it went over 3 meters out but I am doubling that out to 6.......

On a serious note though how on earth can the IRFU not have a panel of refs from around the country so we never have a situation like this where the entire on field team of officials is Munster.....while they do their best to disguise it the bias is always there in those 50:50 calls.....it is a total pain and distracts from the game.....

[Jcahill1]

Agree with others on here that the game was a way higher standard than expected. I was pretty happy with that performance, all things considered. Some easy fixables in the lineout and competing in the air, plus having a more "sympathetic" officiating team would go a long way. Very happy we managed to grind out the win in the end, given all that was going against us.
Also, not sure anyone has mentioned it but I thought Conan had a very good game before he went off.

[Hippo]

Hated the canned stadium noise, I was listening on the radio and could barely hear Tremenjus over the din. Although I know what you'll say about that...

I'd agree with most of the contributions above and particularly that Ringrose was clear MOTM, characteristically hilarious work from Toland there. Casey looks very promising and made Murray look even more snail-like than usual by contrast.

Special mention for Archer: followed up his 'careless' boot to Sexton's head early in the 2nd half with some classy congratulations to Fardy after the concession of a penalty. Hope he enjoyed the taste of his losing bonus point.

[alanair]

Hated the canned stadium noise, I was listening on the radio and could barely hear Tremenjus over the din. Although I know what you'll say about that...

I'd agree with most of the contributions above and particularly that Ringrose was clear MOTM, characteristically hilarious work from Toland there. Casey looks very promising and made Murray look even more snail-like than usual by contrast.

Special mention for Archer: followed up his 'careless' boot to Sexton's head early in the 2nd half with some classy congratulations to Fardy after the concession of a penalty. Hope he enjoyed the taste of his losing bonus point.

I don’t think anyone should worry too much about Archer - typical antics from him