Anthony Foley praises Ian Keatley’s game management

Although he only landed two of six kicks at goal, thereby leaving 11 points behind, Ian Keatley's all-round game was warmly praised by his coach Anthony Foley after Munster's 14-3 win over Saracens. As Munster turned the screw in the second-half, there were a couple of lengthy touchfinders over the usually well placed Saracens back three which lifted home team and crowd alike, and were reminiscent of Ronan O'Gara in his pomp.

“I thought he controlled the game very well. He managed territory and he managed to keep composed and keep the pressure on them. Look he missed a few shots at goal. He will be more disappointed in that than I will be, and I’ll try to make sure he understands that’s not the end of the world.

"I played with a number of outhalves who missed kicks. Ronan O'Gara and David Humphreys missed kicks at goal, Johnny Sexton missed kicks at goal. It's part and parcel of having the responsibility of having the shots at goal. Some weeks they go for you. He'll go away and work harder and he'll come back and he'll learn from it."

The sinbinning of Rhys Gill proved a welcome turning point at a time when Saracens were showing signs of getting on top for the first time in the match. “There were times when Saracens were on top of us, which you would expect and I thought we withstood that. They’re a very good side and they have a lot of pedigree and they have a massive squad and it was great for us to do what we did against them.

“We worked hard and made sure we didn’t flinch first. I thought our control and any ball that was on the ground, we won it, and if there was anything go-forward we were on it. We’d like to get more turnovers. We don’t want to be defending for that period of time but in saying that that’s me nit-picking. As a performance in Thomond Park in round two I’ll take it.

“I think it’s something that we can build on with this group of players. They’re growing in confidence and they’re growing in belief, and next week is another challenge for them.”

The tactics had been masterfully executed, and Foley understandably derived pleasure from that. “Well, to be honest when you analyse how they play – somebody hit me with a stat that 66 per cent of their tries come from unstructured play, that’s kicks or turnovers. They do kick a lot of ball and contest in the air, and they get tries off that. You’d have seen that last week against Clermont.

“They’ll also put you under pressure with their line speed, and they get turnover and go from there. So we had to manage that and we managed that by controlling the game. We controlled the air, we controlled everything that was bouncing, we dominated set-piece at times.

“When you’re up against quality opposition you expect they’re going to get moments. But we went out with a gameplan, we executed that and we came away with four points, and we’re happy with that.”