THE DARKNESS THAT Munster coach Rob Penney spoke about last week was emphatically lifted following the Heineken Cup win over Harlequins on Sunday.
The 18-12 victory came against the odds and on the back of a month in which the Reds were hammered away by Benetton Treviso and Glasgow Warriors.
With ‘Quins chief Conor O’Shea being lauded with praise and tipped for the Irish job, Munster’s New Zealand coach was met with queries on his future and the team’s playing style.
Crucially, before the memorable quarter-final win at The Stoop, Penney declared, “That absolute desire and that willingness to go that extra yard to get a result, that is a trait that’s sat very well with Munster over the years. We’ll be looking for this generation of Munster players to do likewise.”
Following the match, Ronan O’Gara was quick to praise Penney and Munster’s backs coach, Simon Mannix. O’Gara said:
I was chatting to the younger lads on Friday night and we need them to drive this thing. Paul and myself have to be hanging onto their coat-tails and just about managing to get a game. That’s the standard we need. We need young leaders and they are coming to the fore.”
As Munster reach the crucial stages of the season, it seems the coach and his senior players are on the same page.
In flux
Penney arrived at the southern province speaking about the need to adapt Munster’s forwards-dominated style of play. He claimed the changeover would take two to three years.
The 51-24 blow-out defeat to Warriors in Glasgow, which featured three intercept tries from telegraphed backline moves, may have encouraged Penney to trust his pack at The Stoop and go straight at Harlequins.
“You could actually see things [had changed] against Harlequins,” Leinster scrum coach Greg Feek to TheScore.ie ahead of the Pro12 clash with Munster this weekend.
He said, “It’s a big shift but they brought back more directness to their play. They’re not just going wide to wide.
To change something that different and getting players to buy into it – he’s had key injuries as well, players going in and out – can take a while. It is well deserved for Rob that they made the semi-finals of the Heineken Cup.”
Feek feels that if Munster can take some momentum from a strong start into the second half against Leinster, they are capable of ‘doing some damage with Paul O’Connell at the forefront’.
It would require a miraculous run of results for Munster, and Welsh sides Scarlets and Ospreys, to get Penney’s men into the Pro12 playoffs. However, following the awe-inspiring Heineken Cup win, Penney and his players will feel anything is possible.
*TheScore.ie will be liveblogging all the action at Thomond Park from 6pm on Saturday.
