Attack is the best form of defence. Defence is the best form of attack. Take your pick. Munster operated off both principles and mashed the two together against Leinster to form a rugby ideology that they executed to devastating effect.
Clayton McMillan’s side were worthy winners, a victory all the more praiseworthy when considering the adverse circumstances in which they operated for large swathes of the match.
The metrics would have caused a lesser team to buckle. Munster made 271 tackles – Leinster in comparison 117 – had just 35 per cent possession, 31 per cent territory and conceded 14 penalties to their opponents seven.
Anyone appraised of those figures before the game would have assumed, reasonably, a substantial Leinster win and not a 31-14 shellacking for the home side.
RM Block
Munster brought a real sense of devil to their detail, superbly combative and street-smart at the breakdown, none more so than their captain Tadhg Beirne, who deserved every superlative tossed his way. Five turnovers in his first game of the season was a colossal effort. The cumulative total for the team was 18, as they ransacked rucks or slowed down Leinster’s flow to a trickle.
They quickly appreciated what was permissible at the breakdown in the eyes of referee Gianluca Gnecchi, who was reluctant to punish bodies festooned around the tackle area, players slow to disperse like party revellers being roused to go home. It was relentlessly effective but especially so in the shadow of their own posts.
Munster’s defence was resilient, committed, connected and aggressive, they took all that Leinster had to offer with their ground and pound, close-range assault, and limited their hosts to a try from a lineout maul and another whose origins were in a tap penalty during the game’s death rattle. It was a pittance in terms of a reward for Leo Cullen’s side based on possession and territory.
[ Beirne and Crowley impress but Munster’s defence the real star of the showOpens in new window ]
It could be argued that 14-points of Munster’s tally came courtesy of their defence. Scrumhalf Ethan Coughlan’s superb intercept try was a byproduct of his team’s disruption at a ruck that forced Jamison Gibson-Park into throwing a slightly blind cut-out pass. Apocryphally, Coughlan may have earned a €50 bonus from defence coach Denis Leamy.
The preamble for the penalty try started when the Munster defence hounded the home side into an error close to their line and from that turnover, they managed to get the ball wide to Farrell who was illegally denied a second try according to the officials.
When Leinster did make clean line-breaks (10) their opponents hustled superbly to block off the passing channels, creating that breathing space to realign. The energy and effort expended was the physical embodiment of the spirit in the team.
Leinster were left with a pocketful of regret, flawed decision-making, inaccuracy in execution, careless offloads and passes, and running into the massed ranks of red-shirted defenders on the goal-line rather than appreciating where space existed, mentally and physically a split second off the required standard.
Some of the kicking was lax, ill-judged and incontestable, and Leinster lacked the pace to go around the outside. They didn’t get the bounce effect from their returning Lions. Munster’s kicking in comparison, with two exceptions, produced lucrative dividends, the highpoint of which was Jack Crowley’s beautifully weighted chip for Tom Farrell’s try.
The movement of the Munster players got the Leinster defence to check for an instant while Farrell came on a diagonal line and showed great composure to win the finger-tip flick and finish under the posts.
On a brief tangential note, it should be more important to celebrate Crowley’s excellent performance than to denigrate Sam Prendergast’s display. The Munster outhalf was superb, he demonstrated his talent and temperament in equal measure in marshalling and providing intelligent direction to his team. He had one or two big moments in defence to boot.
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Munster also showed the capacity to learn and progress. Edinburgh sliced and diced the Irish province, causing all manner of problems the previous weekend. Munster weren’t as porous at Croke Park. They also came up with some big plays, especially towards the end of the third quarter.
Gavin Coombes held Josh van der Flier up in-goal, Beirne was sharpest to react to the ball popping out from a scrum close to the Munster line and it was the captain who won a penalty turnover after another prolonged defensive set in and around their try-line.
Leinster might feel a little hard done by in winning seven, according to the official stats, scrum penalties that referee Gnecchi didn’t have a conversation about the prospect of escalating the censure. But in some respects, they’d be looking in the wrong areas seeking mitigation there for the defeat.
The home side had enough ball to win the match. They simply lacked the composure and accuracy of exaction when confronted by a Munster defence in which Fineen Wycherley, Edwin Edogbo, Jack O’Donoghue, Dan Kelly and Shane Daly especially, made some big plays, to think or find their way past, through, over or around their opponents. Munster’s ability to gamble and scramble won the day.
