ANTHONY FOLEY SAYS a slight slip in training ground standards at Munster may account for their costly errors in the opposition 22 in recent weeks.
The southern province have done some fine work in attack and through their kicking game to build opportunities in the recent defeats to Connacht, the Dragons and Leicester, but the finishing touches haven’t been there.
Last weekend’s defeat to the Tigers at Thomond Park saw Munster produce a high number of handling errors in the green zone, killing their opportunities to score early tries in the crucial European game.
“We have gone through it, we have reviewed it,” said Foley in Limerick yesterday. “It is something that has crept into our game over the last three games basically. You go back to the Dragons game, you go back to the Connacht game.
“There was opportunities in those games but we butchered them. After in that green zone area, we have talked about it again. We have looked at how we train, how we go about training, what standards we set upon ourselves in training. Just try and eliminate it.
You are what you do at times. Sometimes you turn a blind eye to maybe one or two things being dropped in training because you don’t see the significance of it. We have to tidy up a lot of that and make sure it is taken out of our game.”
Asked whether ensuring high standards are consistently upheld is the coaching staff’s responsibility, Foley stated that everyone involved in Munster’s squad must demand more of themselves in preparation.
“It’s everyone,” said Foley. “It’s important that as a group we look after the standards that are around the place, whether that’s the coaches, whether that’s the leaders, whether that’s the players themselves, whether that’s an academy player.
“It has got to be everyone, and everyone has got to be accountable for each other.”
Foley was pleased by what he saw in a full-blooded training session in Limerick yesterday, but admitted that three consecutive defeats mean “everyone’s down” in terms of confidence.
“It is natural for everyone to feel the world’s against them,” said the Munster head coach, while also stressing that Munster will remain in their own “cocoon” this week as negativity around the province grows.
“You know, turn off your phone. You don’t have to listen to the radio, pick up a newspaper, or watch TV. You can Sky Plus anything you want, you don’t really need to engage with the outside world these weeks.
“I would imagine a lot of fellas will be locked away in their own little world to prepare and just solely focused on the game.”
One man who would perhaps be best served to follow that template this week is Ian Keatley, who endured one of his toughest evenings in a Munster shirt as the province were beaten by Leicester.
A missed penalty in front of the posts was the lowlight, while Keatley also had some difficulty out of hand and in his game management. Foley says his out-half is fully aware that he needs to deliver far more in Sunday’s return leg at Welford Road.
“He turned up today [Tuesday] and he knows himself things need to be better,” said Foley. “You know you can’t go around fooling a fella or codding a fella around that and he knows. He’s spoken frankly about it and he’s showed up and trained well.
“He needs to get on with it as well. I don’t think he intentionally missed any of those kicks, it wasn’t something he did on purpose. It happens to everyone. I’ve played with enough out-halves who have missed kicks.
“It is hard at times for the kickers, it’s their responsibility but we try and look at it as a collective. As a group we have to stand together and make sure our whole performance improves. Those kicks wouldn’t have mattered if we had executed a few other things better.”
Foley must wait to learn whether or not he can call on tighthead prop BJ Botha this weekend after the South Africa suffered a concussion against the Tigers, his second in the last month.
Botha visited a specialist in Cork yesterday and did not train with the squad, while Tyler Bleyendaal, who has seriously struggled with a quad injury in recent times, ran separately from the remainder of the Munster group.
Foley says he hasn’t followed up on his anger about a penalty decision made by Romain Poite last weekend, stating that he wants to “make sure I’m not distracted from what we’re doing this week.”
The Munster head coach did, however, say he was perhaps wrong to have expressed his frustration at the post-match press conference.
Look, I probably shouldn’t have said it afterwards the way I did, but I just saw that incident fairly similar to the Saracens yellow card last year, I think, the TMO had recommended a yellow card and they were looking for a mark and then they saw half a picture and suddenly it’s a reversal.
“When you see the whole picture you can understand why, so there was a lot of that going on in my head. I probably shouldn’t have gone out in the media and said it, but I wasn’t thinking straight at the time.
“It was a big moment in the game and it goes down at that but there’ll be other big moments going forward and hopefully we’ll get one or two go our way.”
Indeed, Foley will be hopeful that Jérôme Garcès favours Munster this weekend in Welford Road. More importantly, the former number eight must hope that his players deliver their finest performance of the season.
Another defeat will leave the province looking at a group stage European exit for the second season in a row.
“We need to be precise,” said Foley of the challenge ahead. “We need to go about our game and be cute about what we’re doing. We need to have a lot of energy about it and we need to be smart in how we play the game over there.
“Hopefully we have that in this group and I think we have. I can only judge these fellas, they’ve gone to dark places before and come out with results so hopefully we can get something this weekend.”
