Listless Munster in need of a tonic
Deficiencies amongst the Munster forwards, specifically at the breakdown and a line-out drained of confidence, have put pressure on Ronan O'Gara's game
On the first Saturday of this year, Ulster travelled to Thomond Park and spanked Munster 37-11. Ronan O'Gara recalled the experience in his autobiography. "The doubters and knockers had a field day," he wrote.
Fast forward 10 months and, despite last season's ultimate achievements in winning a Magners League and reaching the last four in Europe (still a "failure" in O'Gara's eyes), Munster have more knockers than a row of NFL cheerleaders.
During that last winter of discontent, Munster had also lost to Connacht during the festive season and the ever-available obituaries were dusted down from the shelves and gleefully replicated by the usual punditry suspects.
And yet, two months later, Munster produced arguably their most complete European performance when they destroyed the Ospreys in their Heineken Cup quarter-final. Their relentless assault on perfection in the guise of a League and Cup double seemed assured. It was an illusory ambition.
That Leinster tore up the script is now history. And now the question is posed once more: Are Munster finished? Next Saturday against Ulster will provide a conveniently timed prism through which to analyse whether Munster are indeed officially immersed in crisis.
Some perspective is required, however. Although form militates against such an eventuality, a reversal of the January scoreline could, in conjunction with other results going their way, see the reigning league champions return to the summit.
replication
Munster would then disappear from public view for a month aware that their Heineken Cup campaign is currently an almost exact replication of their previously successes in 2006 and 2008.
On both of those occasions, they managed to marry uninterested Magners League form with European advancement, despite losing narrowly away to English opposition in the opening two rounds of the pool stages.
Some crisis. Then again, it depends on your tolerance for under-achievement; out of all proportion and with no deference to recent history, the impatience and expectations of many Irish rugby supporters has often beggared belief.
And yet try assuaging the fears of a fiery minority of Munster supporters who are raging against the perceived dying of their team's once vivid red light.
Some of them pine for the A team of Gaillimh and Axel -- messrs Galwey and Foley to you and I -- to take the reins and prevent any further descent into catastrophe; in the eyes of the disaffected fans, their Australian coaches are doing to Munster rugby what their country's soap operas have done to the English language.
This disgruntled rump rail against the departure of their former scrum coach, Paul McCarthy, while conveniently ignoring the departure of much of their pack to either the casualty room or suspension.
If it is not Paul O'Connell's leadership and physical combativeness that is lacking, then it is Ronan O'Gara's form veering south. It's a familiar list of complaints and Munster are well-acquainted with such incisive probing by a portion of their nearest and dearest support base.
"All of a sudden people were asking questions," O'Gara recalled in his book of the inquests last winter. "Were we finished? Were too many of us growing old together? Were we too satisfied?" The chorus is a familiar one but there is a distinct difference.
Last season, Munster were arguably tripped up by the complacency which often accompanies a sustained period of brilliant performances; this time, though, they cannot even cling to this excuse for comfort, such has been the dearth of quality displayed thus far.
It hasn't helped that the season has been fractured by the Lions tour and the losses of players through injury, suspension and international commitments.
Whatever happens in Thomond Park this weekend, McGahan and Co will be forced to bid farewell to the majority of their first-team squad for the guts of a month.
It is no coincidence that Munster's most unrelenting run of form was at the start of last season; after an uninterrupted summer of pre-season work, the team really hit the ground running and offered a sustained vision of the fluent game McGahan, an outstanding technical coach, has striven to introduce.
Unfortunately, this style has imploded due to deficiencies amongst the forwards, specifically at the breakdown and a line-out drained of confidence, while the pressure on O'Gara's game has thus increased proportionately.
The system is weighing down the players and the more they try to play their way through the malaise, certain exceptions notwithstanding, the worse it seems to get.
Munster have suffered crises of confidence before; indeed, their history is littered with instances where they have thrived in adversity, self-inflicted or otherwise.
Nonsensical
The suggestion in some quarters is that the absence of familiar voices has stymied the passion within the dressing-room; nonsensical, of course, when one casts an eye at strong characters like O'Connell, O'Gara and Alan Quinlan.
In the past, they have thrashed out their difficulties in private; O'Gara and Foley have recalled numerous occasions within the pages of their autobiographical tomes where no-holds-barred conflagrations have spurred the side on to greater things.
That fire needs to burn inside Munster bellies once more, beginning on Saturday. It's only a few months since this side were just two matches away from being crowned the greatest club side the game has ever seen.
Paradoxically, the imminent international disruption may be the best thing to happen to Munster when, perhaps, their leading lights may belatedly fumble successfully for form in the green of Ireland, rather than the red of Munster.
The break may also benefit the Munster brains trust as well, especially since it seems on the recent evidence presented in performances, that the harder the team tries to rectify its problems, the worse it is getting.
In the interim, it is impossible to over-estimate the confidence boost that a win will offer the side this Saturday, allied to a decent display.
It seems that there are too many players asking what their team-mates and coaches can do for them when perhaps it's time they need to ask what they can do for their team-mates and coaches.
After all, that will always remain the Munster way.
- David Kelly
Irish Independent
