MUNSTER HEAD COACH Graham Rowntree hailed Munster’s “beautiful” attacking play in a 40-29 victory over Glasgow Warriors but says it was “tainted” by a struggling maul defence.
The men in red had the bonus point secured by half time but leaked five pushover tries, four in the second half, against the URC leaders’ potent pack.
“We had momentum in our attack last week (against Leinster), even though the scoreline didn’t reflect it, and we took it through to this week,” said Rowntree.
“It’s tainted for me with those maul tries.
“We’ll look at how we’re giving them mauls at our own tryline and we have to be better there.
“I said to the lads, we have some work to do as a forward pack, otherwise we’ll be defending mauls all season. All season.
“We’ve got some work to do there but it stems back to our discipline around the middle of the field.
“We’ve got to be better. We’ll fix it. We’ve done it before. It’s a technical issue and we’ll get it right.”
Tom Ahern, relocated from the second row to blindside flanker, scored two tries in the corner and Rowntree hailed the Ardmore native’s versatility.
“We’d spoken about him, even when he was in the second row, about using him on the edge of the field more. Then we made the decision last week before the Leinster game to put him back to six.
“I remember telling him the morning of training, ‘How about six?’, and he just lit up.
“Tom’s not that expressive as a person but I was impressed by how he’s taken to the position.
“It’s good, he’s not perfect, but he’s showing to be a very versatile back-five player.
“He was a full-back not long ago. It does play into his strengths and you can see he’s enjoying his game.”
Those full-back skills were evident in his high take for the second try.
“He was tackled in the air, got up, and did well,” added Rowntree. “I’m chuffed with how he’s going. We’ve got some serious competition in that back-five now.”
A further positive was a debut off the bench for Crusaders recruit Oli Jager, who arrived just last Thursday week.
“He was blowing a bit but he was still getting up to speed in terms of how we’re doing things,” said Rowntree.
“Good man, very diligent; a huge, huge human being. I was delighted we could get him on the pitch and get some minutes down him fairly soon after he arrived in the country.
“He’s a good kid.”