David Corkery
As games of rugby go, this one was as ugly as it gets and for Munster the cracks that have haunted them for many years are starting to look like gaping valleys.
Foretelling eventual champions in any sport is not a very easy task to master however, if I had to pick two sides that are not going to win this years Investec Champions Cup, I be fairly happy to suggest that neither Munster or Castres are going to come within an arses roar of doing so.
From the off, both sides played as if they had just gathered in the car park a few hours before the kick-off, threw a few moves together and trotted off to the dressing rooms to get changed for the game.
Shocking passing, very poor kicking, lack of cohesion between backs and forwards, terrible leadership and absolute zero inventiveness are just some of the aspects of this game that shone through.
There is an old saying in rugby that stipulates, that if you want to play an expansive game you must first earn the right to do so.
Ultimately what this means is that unless you have players that have the same kind of finishing capabilities as Bryan Habana or Jonah Lomu standing on the extremities of the field, you must be prepared to roll up your sleeves and do some donkey work before you even think about feeding your wingers.
There were long and laborious passages of play during this game where it looked as if both sides had no idea that in order to win the game they had to go forward with the ball.
Without even attempting to find a way of outsmarting or even running over the man who stood in front of the ball carrier the first option was to pass the ball to the man next in the line. The ball went from one wing to the other and back again until someone eventually got fed up and decided to kick the damn thing, thus giving away possession.
Both sets of backs positioned themselves so far behind the play it would have been almost impossible to break the all important gain line, especially with how quickly both defensive lines were advancing.
Jack Crowley of whom I am a big devotee probably had one of his shoddiest showings ever since he emerged on the professional scene and with the Six Nations looming on the horizon, now is not a good time to offer up a two out of ten performance.
Perhaps Crowley is thinking too much about the challenge that Leinster’s Sam Prendergast is establishing, but whatever it is he needs to very quickly eradicate the mistakes he is making.
The first thing Crowley should do on Monday morning when the team gathers in Limerick for their debriefing is marshal all his forwards together in one room and give them a bollocking of biblical proportions.
Apart from John Hodnett and Dave Kilcoyne who had to play sixty minutes of rugby in his first game back in nearly a year all the rest need to be told in no uncertain terms that their performance in this game was nowhere good enough to even compete at this level, not to even mention winning the competition outright.
If Munster’s opponents had been Toulouse on this occasion, the game would have been a foregone conclusion after twenty minutes and Toulouse is the team they should be judging themselves against on a weekly basis.
Irrespective of how good Crowley can be when he is firing on all cylinders, unless the eight men who play in front of him can supply him with a respectable amount of ball whilst dominating their opposing numbers, he will never be able to guide them out of trouble and in to the promised land.
For me Crowley is still Ireland’s number one fly-half and as all greats do, he will take the learnings from this defeat and turn them into valuable lessons that no training field practices could ever afford him.
Another area of Munster’s performance that fell flat on the night was leadership.
I realise it is still very much in its infancy, but it is starting to look like the option of awarding Tadhg Beirne the captains arm band was the wrong decision.
Personally I have no idea of what Beirne is like in the dressing room or on the training paddock however, what I do know is that ever since he accepted the job his performances on the field has dropped a good twenty percent.
There are also pivotal times in games where the man looks very unsure as to what decision he should be opting for. The last thing the players who play under his wing want to see is uncertainty or hesitation in his decision making.
Captains can only become great leaders if the lead from the front and make unwavering calls as to what they want their players to do next.
Munster’s next four games are against Ulster (A), Leinster (H) Saracens (H) and Northampton (A) and with the injury list they compiled in this game and the quality within these sides, their season could well be over at the end of this quartet of games.