IT’S ANNIVERSARY TIME, a year since we last heard the players and coaching staff of Ulster and Munster explain away a key defeat in the knock-out stages of either Europe or the Pro14 by passionately declaring that not only would they ‘learn from the experience’ but also, and this is the bit that gets you each time, that they’d ‘move on’.
After a while, when you keep hearing the same story, you stop listening. It’s the boy-who-cried-wolf-syndrome. So, whoever loses tonight and comes out with a promise like that, well, they’ll need to be convincing with their words because nothing erodes a supporter’s faith quite like a play-off defeat.
For Munster, for Johann van Graan, the stakes couldn’t be higher. A loss this evening (kick-off 7.35pm, live on Premier Sports 2, TG4) will see them slip down the provincial pecking order from second to third. It won’t just be the end of their season but also of van Graan’s reign. He’ll leave without a trophy, with just a final and four semi-final appearances to his name, and no doubt to renewed criticism from ex-players who are still dining out on stories about the good old days.
It’s arguably just as big a night for Dan McFarland and Ulster; the one difference being that McFarland will be in the same job next season, no matter what.
If we are to be fair to each coach, such high expectations need a little context. The year before McFarland joined Ulster was the year when Brian O’Driscoll called the club ‘a basket-case’. That season they needed a play-off win over the Ospreys to qualify for the following year’s (2018/19) Champions Cup and weren’t within a sniff of the Pro14 play-offs.
The van Graan era also started with a bit of a mess, his arrival midway through the 2017/18 season coming after Rassie Erasmus’ long goodbye. It was 18 months earlier when they too were qualifying for Europe by the narrowest of margins, nearly two years since Alan Quinlan called their defeat to Stade Francais a ‘borderline disgrace’.
We tend to forget how bad each club was then as we gripe about their inability to land some silverware now. A certain amount of credit should therefore be handed out to each coach for raising standards and thereby expectations. Prior to his arrival, Ulster spent four years failing to get out of their pool in the Champions Cup. Now, a one-point defeat to Toulouse is seen as a tragedy.
But the flip side to making a side better is that people expect the curve to keep moving upwards. When it appears to level off, fans lose patience. Ulster have lost two Champions Cup quarter-finals, a Challenge Cup semi, a Pro14 semi and a Pro14 final under McFarland. Munster’s van Graan has also been Mr Nearly Man.
In other words, each team desperately needs a knockout win their fans can be proud of. Both coaches have had a few, coincidentally one apiece over Edinburgh; Ulster in the 2020 Pro14 semis, Munster in the 2019 Champions Cup semis ……….. but that was Edinburgh and that was a while back. Eaten bread is soon forgotten.
With all this in mind, picking a winner for tonight’s game isn’t easy. Up until lunchtime yesterday, you’d have sided with Ulster, not just because they have home advantage, but also because they have momentum, recovering from their losses to Toulouse and Munster by grinding out wins over Edinburgh and Sharks.
In the meantime, Munster have been dumped out of Europe in heartbreaking fashion and then played depressing stuff against Leinster’s second team. This time they are the ones sporting the hangover, whereas Ulster had that dull experience when the teams collided a month ago.
But if the easy call was to go for Ulster at 11.59am yesterday as soon as the teams were announced at noon and it became clear that Peter O’Mahony, Andrew Conway and Gavin Coombes were back for Munster and that Mike Lowry was out for Ulster, our opinion changed.
Lowry’s absence will hurt, denying Ulster a running threat from deep. The presence of six forwards on the Munster bench could hurt even more, a point Stephen Ferris made in his big-match preview with Premier Sports.
“Sizes win prizes,” Ferris said, “and Ulster just don’t have what La Rochelle has, so, when it comes to the physicality stakes, when they empty their bench, it weakens the side a bit.”
Nonetheless Ferris was still prepared to make a claim for his old club, pointing to the effect of their defensive linespeed, the variety of their attack between Stuart McCloskey’s power and James Hume’s footwork.
In Billy Burns they have a reasonable organiser of their attack while a few other unsung heroes, loosehead Andy Warwick, second row Alan O’Connor, and winger Ethan McIlroy, are a lot better than most people think.
Like Munster, they too have a decent maul. They’ll need it. Key for them will be their ability to stop Munster getting access to their 22, where their set-piece is strong, their strategy of being able to pick-and-go being hard on the opposition even if it is not easy on the eye.
We won’t know until the 20-minute mark whether O’Mahony and Coombes can get back up to match speed after their varying periods out with injury. By then we’ll see if Ulster have an effective plan to stop Munster’s kicking game, if Robert Baloucoune is in one of those moods where he is simply unstoppable and whether we’ll see the Ulster who thrilled us in Toulouse or the one played depressingly poorly a fortnight later.
Either way, we’ll discover which of these sides has ‘learned their lessons’. The prize for the swots is a place in the semis.
Ulster team v Munster
15. Stewart Moore
14. Rob Baloucoune
13. James Hume
12. Stuart McCloskey
11. Ethan McIlroy
10. Billy Burns
9. John Cooney
1. Andrew Warwick
2. Rob Herring
3. Tom O’Toole
4. Alan O’Connor
5. Iain Henderson (captain)
6. Marcus Rea
7. Nick Timoney
8. Duane Vermeulen
Replacements
16. John Andrew
17. Eric O’Sullivan
18. Gareth Milasinovich
19. Kieran Treadwell
20. Matty Rea
21. Nathan Doak
22. Ian Madigan
23. Ben Moxham
Munster team v Ulster
15. Mike Haley
14. Andrew Conway
13. Chris Farrell
12. Damian de Allende
11. Keith Earls
10. Joey Carbery
9. Conor Murray
1. Josh Wycherley
2. Niall Scannell
3. Stephen Archer
4. Jean Kleyn
5. Fineen Wycherley
6. Peter O’Mahony (captain)
7. Alex Kendellen
8. Gavin Coombes
Replacements
16. Diarmuid Barron
17. Jeremy Loughman
18. John Ryan
19. Jason Jenkins
20. Thomas Ahern
21. Craig Casey
22. Ben Healy
23. Chris Cloete
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