Munster success a two-edged sword

At Heathrow on Sunday night, the Munster party split into two as they headed back to Cork and Limerick. That night, in Schooner's bar, the Limerick contingent each wore a Fez, the supporters' quirky motif at Saracens, and enjoyed the televised highlights of their famous win. Now comes the tricky part.

Yesterday, they split up some more in readiness for this weekend's first round of the AIB League, before regrouping the following week for the first of back-to-back meetings with their Heineken Cup quarter-final conquerors of last season, Colomiers.

It's a difficult club versus province balancing act, uniquely Irish within the European scene. It does neither club nor province any favours, and it will be recalled that this dichotomy ultimately hindered Ballymena, and to a lesser degree Dungannon, more than it did Ulster last season.

Indeed, the better Munster do in Europe, the more it is liable to hurt their clubs, especially Shannon, who provide the bulk of Munster's pack of warheads. The problem will become more acute for Munster if they do make the knock-out stages of the European Cup, and with it the ensuing three-month gap between the pool stages and the quarter-finals.

It helps though, that such is the make-up of next week's opening Division One fixture list, none of the Munster players (or those from the other provinces) will be running into each other. That will be reserved for the second round on Tuesday, December 28th, when Constitution play host to Garryowen while Shannon and Young Munster are locking horns.

Hence, when sending his Munster squad on their way, Declan Kidney wished them the best and implored them to keep the winning habit. Ever the level-headed pragmatist, he was also endeavouring to keep the lid on premature Munster euphoria on RTE news last night with his best "Whoaaa Betsy" routine.

While "very pleased" if Munster's win gave Irish rugby a restorative post-World Cup shot in the arm, he countered that there had been a small bit of over-reaction to the World Cup. In the same way, he'd hate people to get carried away with what was, after all, only a second win in a six-match group.

Too true. The reality is that Munster have no easy matches in Pool D, what with Colomiers twice, a vengeful Saracens and Pontypridd at Sardis Road to come. Furthermore, it could be that they will need at least another two wins, possibly even three, to ensure progress.

One of the tournament's possible flaws is that, apart from the six pool winners, only the two best runners-up advance to the knock-out stages. In the event of two or more of the runners-up having the same number of points, the first criteria for deciding the pecking order will be the number of tries each team has scored, and secondly their points differential.

All of which could obviously favour teams, say, in Pool B, where Padova have been the tournament's most masochistic whipping boys, already conceding 44 points more than anybody else, as against teams in tougher pools.

Had the tournament organisers incorporated an additional play-off round for all six runners-up, this might have enhanced the prospect of ensuring the best eight sides actually made the quarter-finals. It would have had the additional benefit of keeping more teams interested toward the end of the pool stages, as they would have a better chance of progressing.

At least Munster's win at Saracens also enhances their chances of winning the pool and with it a home quarter-final as one of the four best pool winners.

For this, not only Munster, but also the IRFU and Leinster should be getting down on bended knee, as the only way a third Irish province (ie Leinster) can compete in the European Cup next year is if one of them makes this year's semi-finals. Sadly it doesn't look as if that will be either Leinster or Ulster.

Putting Munster's win in context, no Irish province in the European Cup had ever won on English or French soil in 10 previous attempts (which further underlines the merits of Connacht's Shield win at Northampton two long years ago).

Munster themselves had only won once away in 10 previous attempts, and that a "dead" rubber in Padova. This was Munster's eighth competitive win on the spin this season (ninth including the win over Ireland); since last year they have lost only twice in 18 competitive outings.

Then there has been the infusion of Keith Wood and John Langford in a truly grizzled tight five, the maturation of John Hayes, David Wallace, Peter Stringer and Ronan O'Gara, not to mention the midfield cutting edge of Mullins.

In all of this Kidney and his cohorts have studiously improved the team's weaponry and competition for places, whilst making a virtue out of what was once a perceived problem, namely the Cork-Limerick bilocation. The separate fitness work and, coupled with the training in each location, has kept the squad fresh and engendered a club-like atmosphere.

Munster's form of the last two years and their clubs' decade-long dominance of the AIL is adding up to pretty compelling evidence. Thus, after the equivalent of the road to Damascus, henceforth the Irish management might be inclined to take as their starting point the inclusion of as many Munster men as possible. These boyos appear, at the very least, inestimably stronger mentally in a crisis.

Certainly the Irish management's own investment in Hayes' once flawed scrumagging is now paying dividends, and in hindsight they must wonder if they jettisoned Galwey too soon. At the very least, he could have continued to be a vital cog in the squad, as he had been when helping the initial upturn under Gatland.

Anthony Foley, whatever about fitness reports or his lack of blinding pace, is undoubtedly playing the best rugby of any number eight in Ireland, ditto O'Gara at number 10, and if Mullins could sort out his head-on tackling problem, the number 12 jersey wouldn't be an issue. There isn't a centre in Ireland who could have unleashed that match-winning left-to-right pass for Jeremy Staunton's try.

As for full-back it's early days yet, but the Munster brains trust might have hit on something with Staunton there. He has the basics to play anywhere in the back-line, the space and time seems to suit his rangy game and he has the fearless, gung-ho mentality to make him a real weapon. Thanks again then, Munster.