Gerry Thornley: European woes raise stakes for latest Munster-Leinster clash

Rarely have the interprovincial festive derbies found Munster and Leinster at such a low ebb.

Time was, and perhaps still is to a degree, when this was the stand-out fixture in the entire regular-season league programme. They were two high-achieving bulk suppliers to the Irish team decorated with Lions players, who won five Heineken Cups in a golden seven-year period, not to mention five of the last eight league titles as well. Accordingly they packed out both the Aviva and Thomond Park on a regular basis.

The fixture began to lose a little of its lustre last season when so many Irish players were withdrawn from the game. It has perhaps been a little further diluted by their form this season, but hopefully the teams are not again shorn of several of their leading lights. It will also be revealing to see how full or otherwise Thomond Park is, but the crowd deserves to see a full-on affair.

The two sides' recent troubles make this latest clash even more important. Leave aside that Pro12 standings are more important than ever in terms of seedings for the European Champions Cup. Munster have lost four games on the spin, and Leinster four from four in Europe. One team will receive a very timely pick-me-up to relaunch their campaign next Sunday while the losers will suffer another blow.

Well-coached side

It’s debatable, but Munster appear to have a little more about them. To respond from a demoralising defeat at home to Leicester a week later by taking the game to the Tigers as they did was heartening. It suggests the spirit is strong. Not all their fans will agree, but their set-pieces were solid, their clear-out work good and some of their willingness to keep the ball in hand, their running lines and offloading, smacked of a well-coached side.

They had plenty of both games, before failing to capitalise on a host of chances. It would be worse if they weren’t creating anything. But there is a belief, mixed with an acute frustration, in their coaching and methods. They feel, with some justification, they are not far away.

Leinster also responded from their defeat in Toulon to take the game to the Euro kingpins to good effect. Yet, in a sense, that almost made their defeat more depressing.

What more could they have done? Trailing 16-5 and facing a probable exit, Toulon resolved to play brutally direct through their maul, scrum and big, direct ball-carriers. Toulon's bench had inestimably more impact which, one suspects, was at the kernel of Leo Cullen's post-match comments regarding Toulon playing by different rules with 15 overseas' players in their match-day squad. No doubt Toulon will play more rugby as their new galacticos settle in, but with Wayne Barnes also taking centre stage, it made for a boring second half.

These derbies now matter way more to Leinster than their two remaining European games, where players such as Johnny Sexton, Cian Healy and Jamie Heaslip could be given a fortnight's rest.

Right now, the form team in Ireland is very much Ulster. The arrival of Les Kiss as director of rugby has coincided with an improved defence and has seemingly enabled Neil Doak to concentrate on his excellence as a skills' coach.

It may also have something to do with the accuracy of their breakdown work. The effectiveness of the first two to clear out enabled Ulster to keep their numbers and keep Toulouse stretched, and thus Ruan Pienaar’s opportunistic first-half try.

Furthermore when Toulouse sought to bludgeon Ulster through their heavyweight bench, Ulster not only held firm, but kept looking to score tries with a skills’ set that held firm under pressure. Hence, with a couple more cracking tries they scored 15 second-half points, 15 more than either Leinster (who now have not scored a point in their last four second halves) and Munster. It was the European performance and result of the weekend.

It will be interesting to see how this transmits itself into Ireland's Six Nations campaign. For no less than CJ Stander at number eight, Paddy Jackson, Luke Marshall, Stuart McCloskey and Andrew Trimble are currently the form Irish players in those positions.

The presence of a few Celtic teams in the last eight would be good for the tournament, giving it more of a genuine European feel than the Anglo-French carve-up.

Were there no Irish teams in the knock-out stages, the European Cup would lose some of its traditional flavour. Allowing for bias, over the course of the Heineken Cup's history, the Irish teams saved the competition in many respects, by ensuring it was not an Anglo-French carve-up. No supporters travelled in better, more colourful and noisier numbers. Those numbers have discernibly ebbed this season, particularly with Munster and Leinster.

Furthermore, the increased competition for television coverage of the European tournaments was meant to benefit the viewer but, of course, it has had the opposite effect. Many Irish rugby fans who already shell out €80 or more to have Sky Sports in their monthly TV packages, are at best begrudging about adding BT.

More and more, Irish fans are becoming a little disenfranchised from the tournament they helped to create.

gthornley@irishtimes.com