“RELIEF.” THAT’S HOW frankly Graham Rowntree described it and, frankly, that’s exactly how his wing Shane Daly sounded in the aftermath of Munster’s hard-earned 27-23 victory over Northampton Saints at Thomond Park.
The southern province were forced to play almost an hour of this evening’s encounter with 14 men after Jack O’Donoghue was red-carded for a shoulder to the face of Saints lock David Ribbans and, despite taking a 24-0 lead into half-time, they had to defend for their lives in a pulsating finish to claim four crucial points in their Champions Cup campaign.
Ultimately, Rowntree’s side — Daly very much included — reached into their respective tanks and sufficiently repelled the Premiership side over the final quarter. Afterwards, Rowntree accepted that “it could have got away from us” but spoke of his pride in his players for clinching victory in a clutch finish.
“I said to the lads afterwards: it’s just relief. That could have easily gone away.
“It’s hard enough playing against a team like that with 15, never mind with 14 for 60 minutes. We’ve a lot of moving parts there at the end with injuries and substitutions and we were struggling a bit to relieve pressure from our own half. And again, we’ve got to have a look at giving them access through penalties, which eventually they scored two good tries off.
“So, yeah, relief but proud of the lads. Proud of their resolve. And that will do us good going forward. But again, there will be heaps to get right for next week [v Toulouse].”
Breaking down the challenges faced by his side in of having to go it without their try-scoring blindside flanker for almost three quarters of the game, Rowntree said: “There are some changes. You’re missing a guy in the lineout; lineout defence changes. Defensively, it challenges us more — but luckily we train a lot stressed, defensively; we train a lot under pressure to deal with things like tonight.
“It changes things. We had a good plan at half-time, sticking to it… We’ll have to look at how we can do that better.”
Asked what exactly the plan was at half-time, Rowntree replied: “We have to kick a bit better and adjust our spacings. A man down in defence, spacing had to be right. Our ruck decisions had to be right and we got caught a bit in the second half around the ruck, a couple of loose penalties.”
Wing Daly, who again impressed in playing the entire 80 minutes for Munster, explained how drastically the red card changed proceedings from his perspective as a back-three player in the second half.
“You have to stay calm, that’s the main thing. Strategically, for us, it does change backfield. A lot of the time we’re in 14-1 rather than 13-2 so we’ve more space to cover in the back. They took [advantage of] that well in the second half, leading to one of their tries.
“But I think we did manage it well, especially in the first half. In the second half, I do think we could have been better than that. There were one or two instances where we probably gave them too much space and, in fairness to them, they were good enough to take it.”
The 26-year-old Cork man made one of the game’s key defensive interventions with just minutes remaining. A brilliant, split-second read saw him come in off his wing and smash Saints’ inside centre Rory Hutchinson to foil an overlap and force a knock-on.
It was Northampton’s last significant chance and, even with significantly more mileage on his clock than would have been the case if his side were at full complement, Daly not only made the right mental calculation but executed his booming hit on Hutchinson to perfection.
“I think Wig said it already, we practice so much in those scenarios,” Daly explained. “We’re very rarely man-on when we defend anyway.
“We always practicing with men down.
“So, for us, we get so much practice at making those reads that when it comes to it, you’re not consciously thinking of it; it’s just a feel and you hope for the best and trust yourself, and thankfully it worked.”
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