Gerry Thornley: Shocking defensive decline leaves Munster facing worst-case scenario

For the second time in three years Leinster are the sole province to keep the Irish flag flying in the quarterfinals of the Champions Cup. They are also 15 points clear of Ulster, 26 ahead of Munster and 30 points clear of Connacht in the URC table. They are also, of course, bulk suppliers to an Ireland team that has risen to number one in the world and won the Grand Slam.

This is all very good for Leinster, most obviously, and certainly isn’t doing Irish rugby any harm right now, but whether it’s healthy in the long-term is another matter.

Ulster won only one match in the Champions Cup pool stages, but extending Leinster for an hour as they did in what was a very competitive Round of 16 tie at the Aviva at least made their exit a reasonably honourable one.

Bearing in mind they stretched Leinster for the full 80 in the quarter-final four years ago when losing 21-18, Ulster supporters might question Dan McFarland’s assertion that they have progressed on the basis that, well, he would say that, wouldn’t he?

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Save for James Hume coming in for Darren Cave and Nathan Doak being preferred to John Cooney, it was the same Ulster backline four years on. But only Kieran Treadwell and Nick Timoney survived from the pack, albeit Ulster were unlucky to not have the injured Iain Henderson. And one cold certainly argue that Marcel Coetzee was a more dynamic number 8 than Duane Vermeulen.

Still, they’ve made some shrewd short-terms signings in Rory Sutherland and Jeffery Toomaga-Allen. Ulster were also ending a run of four successive pool exits in 2019, whereas since then they’ve made the Last 16 twice and the quarterfinals once, losing an epic two-legged tie to Toulouse last season by 50-49. No shame in that either.

McFarland also pointed out that the quarter-final four years ago was a big one-off performance, and they were well beaten 50-20 by Glasgow in the Pro14 semi-finals that season, whereas last season, after beating Munster 36-17 in the quarterfinals, they came within the last play of winning their semi-final away to the Stormers and so hosting the Bulls in the final.

Mindful that Leinster will be top seeds in the URC knockout stages, last Saturday’s defeat merely underlined what a golden opportunity Ulster had last June to win their first trophy since 2006. Even so, they have a week to recover from their latest knockout loss to Leinster, and with home games against the Dragons and Edinburgh, should at the very least secure third place.

By contrast, Munster look further away than ever from winning their first trophy since the 2010-11 season.

Between 2012-13 and 2018-19, Munster reached the semi-finals of the Champions Cup five times in seven seasons. But since then, they’ve reached just one quarter-final, when losing honourably after a 100-minute draw against Toulouse in a goal-kicking competition last season.

After understandable teething problems under a new coaching ticket, they pushed Toulouse to tight, one-score wins in both pool games and, along with a one-point loss to Leinster on St Stephen’s Day, those were Munster’s only three defeats in 13 games until the weekend before last.

This made that first-half debacle at home to Glasgow last Saturday week and the nature of their 50-35 beating by the Sharks in Durban all the more shocking. How could they suddenly produce their worst form in months in the season’s defining games?

There were positives in that performance in Durban, not least the continuing good form of Calvin Nash, the composure, quick feet, passing and kicking of Jack Crowley and the quality and variations off lineouts for some of their five tries. Munster’s attacking game has undoubtedly evolved this season, and in each of their last five games they have scored a minimum of four tries and 31 in total.

Granted, this comes with a caveat, namely that their four second-half tries against Glasgow and three against the Sharks came with the die already cast.

They went into the Glasgow game with the second-best defensive record in the URC and only Leinster matched Munster’s meanness in conceding just five tries in the pool stages of the Champions Cup. Whereupon, from the halfway point against the Scarlets, their defence has become more porous than a soup strainer.

In the last 2½ games, ie in 200 minutes of rugby, Munster have conceded a whopping 17 tries and 123 points. The manner in which Makazele Mapimpi stepped between the two Munster locks, Jean Kleyn and RG Snyman – who both looked almost rooted to the spot – was an alarming portent of what was to come.

For sure the heat and humidity had a debilitating effect on Munster. And the Sharks, laden with big-game, World Cup-winning Springboks, had shown in both pool wins in Durban against Harlequins and Bordeaux-Bègles that they are a potent side.

Frankly too, South Africa is nowhere to be going with question marks over your scrum and it always seemed likely that Munster would be punished for not making John Ryan an offer he couldn’t refuse to stay beyond the pool stages. Again, to lose your best tight head once may be regarded as a misfortune, to lose him twice looks like carelessness.

Also, watching James Cronin’s performance for Leicester served to cast a light on some of Munster’s recent signings and non-signings.

True, Munster were unlucky to lose Tadhg Beirne, and Wayne Barnes gave them little or nothing for the first hour or so. But even allowing for the conditions, the manner in which both their scrum and defensive maul was dismantled, and particularly their breakdown was often obliterated by the Sharks’ counter-rucking, was so unlike Munster in Europe.

Munster have problems which run deep off the pitch, but in the short term they have a badly needed week off to somehow heal the mental scars before their last two regular-season URC games back in South Africa against the Stormers and the Sharks again.

Currently fifth, Munster need to get points from those games, otherwise they could conceivably be overtaken by Connacht, the Bulls and the Sharks to finish eighth. That would mean the almost nightmare double whammy of missing out on next season’s Champions Cup (as the highest Welsh qualifier would claim the eighth place) and an away URC quarter-final against, eh, Leinster.

That would seem to be bordering on cruel.

gerry.thornley@irishtimes.com