LAST UPDATE | 9 Jan 2023
WITH MINUTES REMAINING at Musgrave Park, Munster earned a penalty and Ben Healy prodded them to within five metres of the Lions’ line.
The score was 19-3 and Munster, who had already rolled a lineout maul over the chalk for the second of their three tries to that point, would attempt to do it again in order to claim a crucial try-bonus point in their URC playoff pursuit.
Hooker Scott Buckley, who had started and finished that earlier lineout-maul score, had thrown spotlessly all game in repugnant weather. But as the clocked ticked towards red, the wind and rain had died down and a capacity crowd at Musgrave Park could almost taste the cherry on top of a fine night’s work by their side.
In went the ball. Crooked. Lions free-kick. Out went the breath, the energy from the ground, and possibly the chance of Munster turning a four-pointer against their fellow playoff-chasers into a five-pointer.
At least, that’s what it felt like to 8,000 half-drenched souls in the stands. But it was water off a duck’s back to the otherwise superb Buckley and his 14 teammates, as well as their head coach who rightly expected his young side to find another way to fashion a fourth try.
“If you saw the body language of our lads”, says Graham Rowntree, “it was, ‘Okay, next. Forget that — next. We’ll have another go. We’ll get them on the defensive set.’
“The belief. That belief is there. But I keep saying: it stems from how we train and the intensity we’re putting them under when we train. And our fitness came through. It does help your patience when you’ve got it in the tank.
“That’s been one of the most pleasing things for me in this block is that, at the end of the game, it’s us: it’s us playing, it’s us chasing things. We’ve done a lot of work on our fitness, on our skills under pressure, and it’s coming through.
“I’m delighted with the guys’ composure and just sticking to the plan all the time.”
In the end, Munster even made time for Scott Buckley to crash over for their fifth try, his second, after his fellow Cork man Liam Coombes lit up Leeside by slaloming through the tiring Lions’ defence to apply the critical fourth.
A polished team performance in the piddling wet and maximum returns for good measure. Munster were up to fifth at full-time on Friday night having taken 20 points from their last available 25. They had carried into Cork the feel-good factor from their 15-14 turnaround success in Belfast and, in turn, will seek to pick up where they left off when the Northampton Saints visit Thomond Park for this Saturday’s Champions Cup clash.
It’s beginning to feel like real momentum — or, at the very least, the closest thing to it that they have been able to string together so far.
“This season? Yes,” laughs their head coach. “Yes, this season.
“It’s been a tough period for us. You play Stephen’s Day, then you go up to Belfast New Year’s Eve and we win that game in the manner that we did, and then you’ve got five days to rest bodies.
“Obviously, we have to rest some Irish internationals but all along, we’ve had a plan of rotating the squad a bit so nobody’s playing too much.
“There’s guys there who started the game tonight who’ve done hardly any training this week, who’ve played 80 minutes — magnificently. We really rolled our sleeves up, there, in a difficult period.
“Ben in particular,” adds Rowntree, moving the conversation onto out-half Ben Healy who played the full game on Friday just days after announcing he will depart his native province for Edinburgh this summer.
“Ben had a busy week on many fronts. Ben had not played a lot of minutes going into the Ulster game but look at the composure he brought to that game coming off the bench. 10 points. And he was good again tonight.
He led the week. Regardless of the big announcement, he’s led the week. He’s been diligent and he’s been thinking about the right thing all the time.
Asked how difficult it was to manage the entire Healy situation as a head coach, Rowntree replies: “It’s been a long process. We initiated talks with him a long time ago. He’s taken his time — we’ve not pressured him, and I think he’s acknowledged that.
“He’s made his decision but it’s not affected [his conduct]. Throughout all of this, we’ve not been picking him — for most of the last six weeks.”
Were those two things related?
“No, not at all,” Rowntree says firmly. “It’s been on form. And we stand by that.
“But his attitude during that time has not dropped off at all. He’s been fantastic in training even with us not picking him and with this [decision] in the back of his mind — or at the front of his mind.
“I can’t speak highly enough about him. And we have a good relationship. We’ve all been up front.”
There is praise reserved, too, for Healy’s starting half-back partner on Friday, Paddy Patterson, who has scarcely checked his rearview since properly igniting his Munster career against the Springbok ‘A’s at Páirc Uí Chaoimh in November.
The impish scrum-half was equally impressive on Friday night, sniping from a different postcode for Munster’s third try and generally bringing a tempo to his side’s attack that eventually put manners on the tough-tackling Lions.
“That’s the way our game is going,” Rowntree shrugs. “We need a nine…” he pauses. “What does Mike [Prendergast] say? A nine ‘stuck to the ruck.’ His first action is lifting that ball away. He (Patterson) has done that well.
“And there’s a couple of big decisions there, in the half-backs. Because they’re all playing well.
We pick on form. I name the team as late as I can every week. I don’t promise guys any particular game-time in games coming up. It’s all on form. I don’t know who we’re going to pick at nine this week because they’re all playing well.
There have typically been fewer locks at Munster’s disposal of late, with the increasingly talismanic Gavin Coombes slotting into the second row on Friday night after Kiran McDonald flagged an arm injury earlier in the week. “I keep joking with him, we’re moving him up a row every week,” Rowntree says of Coombes. “We could need him at tighthead next week!”
But the head coach explains that there is “light at the end of the tunnel” as far as Munster’s currently bare-looking second row is concerned.
“We’ve got Tadhg [Beirne] back in the mix next week. We’ll hopefully have Fineen [Wycherley] back at the end of the month and Edwin [Edogbo] back at the start of next month,” Rowntree reveals, adding that Thomas Ahern will be fit to return by “March at the earliest”.
Munster fans will surely note that their marquee, World Cup-winning lock was not mentioned in the same breath but Rowntree stresses that it’s “not fair to put a time” on RG Snyman’s return to fitness.
“What I can tell you”, Rowntree adds of the great Springbok, “is he’s training on the pitch next to us. He’s running and moving well which is great to see.
“He won’t be around (available to play) this month but, week by week, he has certainly turned the corner.
“He’s moving well. Christ, he’s a huge man.
“Not this month, and I’m not putting any timeline on it, but things are looking better for him.”
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