GRAHAM ROWNTREE, THE Munster coach, has backed his players to bounce back from tonight’s defeat to Connacht, the third loss they have suffered from four games this season.
Trying to pick positives from a display as disjointed as this was not an easy task for the new coach, although he did find some, praising the effort they put in.
The issue, he maintained, was their indiscipline and inaccuracy.
After the 20-11 defeat Rowntree, said: “We lost our way.
“We were inaccurate again and the last 15 minutes in particular was littered with ill-discipline, where we backed up penalty on penalty. It put us under pressure so that will again receive our focus in training.
“The annoying thing that’s killing us is us – our control of the ball, our accuracy and our discipline, giving away penalties to maul side-entries and breakdown side-entries.”
For a while it looked like being different after Ben Healy’s second penalty gave Munster a six-point lead on 46 minutes. They failed to score thereafter.
“We didn’t push on from there,” Rowntree lamented.
“We had a big opportunity going into the ’22 and we lost control of the ball, next thing we know we’re back in the ’22.
“We’ve got to be better with our ball retention in that area of the field, you know on top of this I can’t fault the energy, the effort from the lads.
“We’ve just got to be more accurate.
“We’ll keep driving that and keep pushing it down their necks; accuracy, accuracy, accuracy under pressure, under fatigue.”
To make matters worse, injuries are mounting. Peter O’Mahony (neck) came off seven minutes from the end.
“We’ll look forward to a huge game at home next week, against a very good, physical (Bulls) team in front of our home crowd.
“I can see what we’re doing in attack on the training field coming out in how we play and the intensity of what we’re doing there.
“We are finding out about some young men coming through. I’m keen to bring those guys through as soon as we can and when appropriate so there are two big positives for me.”
As for Connacht, things were considerably more positive as they recorded their first win of the season after defeats away to Ulster, Bulls and Stormers in the opening three rounds of the season.
“We said coming into the game we needed to win and we’re now talking about the fact that we got it,” said their head coach, Andy Friend afterwards.
“It wasn’t perfect, we know that, but it was a win, it was an interpro win, it was our first home game on our new pitch and in front of our fans and friends and supporters here. It’s a great way to start the weekend.”
Key factors contributing to that win were simple ones, Friend maintained.
“I just thought our physicality was really good,” said Friend.
“I thought our forward pack laid a really good platform for us and we dominated the physicality.
“That was what we said coming into the game, that it was the team that was going to be the most physical, the most disciplined, and have the least amount of unforced errors, would win, and I think on two of those fronts it was us. I don’t know about the unforced errors yet, I haven’t seen those stats, but I thought we were the team that delivered on that front too.”
