Graham Rowntree never saw a lily he felt like gilding. His Munster team were beaten out the gate after 15 minutes here and he heads to South Africa with them now knowing they have a world of improving to do. But he wasn’t downcast afterwards. Not by any stretch.
“As a headline to the game from us, it wasn’t a lack of effort. We just got to be better at taking opportunities. They had minimal opportunities, but took them all. They were a dangerous team like that.
“I thought, end of the first half, the try disallowed for a forward pass almost changed the complexion of the game going into the third quarter. Then they scored again in the third quarter there. I’m pleased with our effort there. They’re a challenging team to play against, but accuracy’s got to be better.”
The start to the game was the end of it. All three of Munster’s front row substitutes were on the pitch inside the opening 20 minutes. Diarmuid Barron was on for Niall Scannell and then John Ryan was on for Barron and then Kieran Ryan was on for Jeremy Loughman and then Scannell was back on for Ryan and Leinster were 21-0 ahead.
“Certainly wasn’t our best 20 minutes that I’ve seen against Leinster,” Rowntree said. “It was chaos. Double HIA, we didn’t have a hooker on the field at one point, trying to get 15 players on the field. Jeremy Loughman got blood injury as well. They sensed we were a bit disjointed, didn’t they? And they got the ball to the edge of the field and took their opportunities.
[ Leinster earn bonus-point win over battered and bruised but characterful MunsterOpens in new window ]
“I thought we had opportunities. We showed we can attack. We stuck to a plan. We had a good plan tonight in terms of how we were going to take that on. We kept playing. But I thought that [disallowed try] would have changed the complexion, going into the third quarter and we had a chances late on the game. I think [Alex Nankivell] could have put Tom Ahearn away later on the game.
“You know, we didn’t stop playing. Fitness is good. But you’ve got to nail those opportunities. There’s a couple occasions we were late getting to the breakdown and out lineout had a few challenges tonight as well against a very good lineout defence. I’m not going to sugarcoat anything, I never have done, but I’m not one for panic either, and I thought our effort was huge tonight. Got to be more accurate.”
In the chaos of that opening period, the Munster lineout got demolished. At exactly the point in the game where they needed safe possession in Leinster’s half just to take the sting out of it, Barron had one stolen and overthrew another, all of it compounding to lead to the second Leinster try. For the Munster head coach, that’s the kind of thing that has to be tightened up. You might get away with it against some side, you won’t against Leinster.
“There was a couple where nobody went up. We were all looking at each other. That’s not all down to good lineout defence. We’ll own that. That’s an error from us. Big errors from us. But there’s other moments where they just get into the ball. They’re good like that.”
But in the final reckoning, Rowntree wasn’t down on his team at all. Mistakes happen, chaos happens. Leinster made the most of it but Munster didn’t lie down. Without making it out to be more than it was, he could see positives in the night.
“Our effort, our energy,” he said. “We kept playing at the end there. You know, we can play. It’s just on occasion we get a bit sloppy, a bit late to the ruck, a forward pass, a bit of ball retention. Our accuracy has just got to be better. I can’t fault their effort.”
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