MUNSTER’S WIAN DU PREEZ feels the side struggled to get out of third gear in their 15-9 win over Saracens but another issue is threatening to derail their Heineken Cup campaign – false starts.
For two of the side’s last three games, Munster have almost been whistled off the park for early engagements at scrum time.
Dave Kilcoyne copped the whistle-blowing flak against Scarlets in November while BJ Botha was the player most scolded on saturday.
Add to that, 18 penalties for infringements real or imagined and it is a miracle that Munster left the pitch at Thomond Park as winners with a handful of points to spare.
“It’s how the referee sees it on the day and the information he gets from the side, the touch judges,” du Preez told Limerick’s Live 95fm. “You’ve just got to get on with it.”
“If it’s an early engagement call,” he added, “you’ve got to get back 10 metres. There’s no point on complaining. You just have to get on with your next scrum.”
Another must-win
The South African prop says there was no back-patting after the Thomond victory and the search for improvements continued this week.
If the scrum, in du Preez’s opinion, was 50/50, there is no doubt that Munster pull a swift one on the Saracens lineout. He said:
The had a 100% record going into the weekend but hats off to Donnacha Ryan for the way he organised the lineout.
“I have to mention the other guys, reacting to the movements of the Saracens players having spent hours watching the videos.
“Surely Saracens will be lifting their levels and bringing in some new options so it will be a fresh start for Sunday.”
I concede that Munster scrum was constantly early engaging the last day but that ref was a joke! He was blowing his whistle for every small insignificant thing. Can’t really base analysis of Munsters game or their proneness to give away penalties on that game imo!
He was trigger happy alright, but…..it seems to be ongoing this early engagement problem. The referees are part of the problem, no consistency. What’s good one week, the next, the ref is practically having an asthma attack blowing his whistle like some pumped up raver. Where’s the balance and how can a team play the ref if they don’t know what he’s going to do?
How hard is it to say the engagement will b 3 seconds after set… 1 one thousand 2 one thousand 3 one thousand hit…. Every front row would know….