hances are when Ben Healy got back to his gaff after the extraordinary drama in Lansdowne Road there was a gift waiting for him on the doorstep. A kicking tee. Adorned with black and red ribbons? Gallows humour is a well practised art form in Munster, and the events of this quarter-final present themselves as prime material.
Martyn Williams, one of the great back-row campaigners, described as “horrible” the experience he endured in 2009 when Cardiff lost a goal-kicking contest with Leicester to see who would play Leinster in that season’s Heineken Cup final. That one was truly bizarre, with the responsibility being drilled down into the forward pack to separate the teams. Williams, the flanker, missed; Jordan Crane, the Tigers number eight, did not.
At least tee-time was not a clause in Williams’s contract. For Healy, on the other hand, it’s his stock in trade. Moreover he’s very good at it. You’d guess that “horrible” doesn’t even begin to describe his failure in the shoot-out, on top of the chances he had in both normal and extra-time. Everything about Healy suggests he’ll get over it, and scars like this are part and parcel of the goal-kicker’s journey.
For Munster their trip looked secure – if that’s not a crazy state of mind against a club like Toulouse who, like Munster, consider themselves an integral part of Heineken Cup history. But a 10-point finish from the French in normal time brought us to level pegging and an extra 20 minutes. When that didn’t work the next criterion was the try count – three apiece – and then they were calling for kicking tees for only the second time in European history.
“I said to my wife there this was like the World Cup semi-final in 2015 that I was involved with that we (South Africa) lost 20-18 against the All Blacks,” Johann van Graan said afterwards. “That feeling that we gave it all we got, the players gave it all they’ve got. Management, staff, the people of Munster gave it all they’ve got.
“We’ve got to know that this is a game. Everybody associated with Munster rugby will be incredibly proud of the 23 guys that stood up and fought today.”
They will also be incredibly disappointed than having dragged themselves back into the game when trailing in the first half they couldn’t get it over the line. Much of the effort focused on the leadership of their top men. Peter O’Mahony, a shoo-in for man of the match – quite an achievement in a game of such quality – and Conor Murray were at the top of their game. Damian de Allende was their guaranteed gain-line operator and played like a man desperate to nail down some silverware before his time in Munster is up.
“We left the hotel saying ‘to the brave and faithful, nothing is impossible’ and I think the way that our captain Peter O’Mahony played, literally when his body couldn’t (do) anymore, then Jack Daly coming on to make his European debut in that cauldron – the incredible thing about rugby is it gives you opportunity to experience things like what happened today,” Van Graan added. “The tough thing is we could have won it in the final play of the game – we had one or two opportunities, but it’s gone now. The sun will come up tomorrow morning.”
He’s right about that. And if he can manage the next two weeks well enough, then Munster can pick up again on their very good form. Certainly Niall Scannell is clear about it.
“I think we have improved massively the last few weeks and it’s starting to click and there’s a lot more confidence and buzz about it and you can see it, particularly in the forwards,” the hooker said.
“There’s a lot of lads running great lines, there’s lads that maybe a season or two ago weren’t willing to give that pass, that tip-on that are now.
“We’re trusting the communication we’re getting from the backs and I think our game’s growing but I think we had trusted that would happen all year and we had to believe that it would come good on the big days.
“It obviously wasn’t enough today but I still think we put together some unbelievable attack and I would hope that we could keep growing that. If we can trust, it will be there because I think in other years maybe we didn’t stretch ourselves enough in the winter months and then on the hard tracks against the big boys we didn’t have that in the locker.
“So that’s where we’ve been trying to expand our attack and hopefully we’ll now start to see it pay dividends in the URC.”
Don’t be surprised if Ben Healy delivers something special in that competition to get his team where they need to go. Talent like that doesn’t disappear on the back of one bad day out.
Munster: M Haley (B Healy 72); K Earls, C Farrell, D de Allende, S Zebo (C Murray 97); J Carbery, C Murray (C Casey 60); J Wycherley (J Loughman 55), N Scannell (D Barron 55), S Archer (J Ryan 51), J Kleyn (J Jenkins 60), F Wycherley (T Ahern 72), P O’Mahony (capt)(J Daly 65), J O’Donoghue, A Kendellen.
Toulouse: T Ramos; D Delibes (M Medard 44; P Fouyssac 72), P Fouyssac (B Germain 64), P Ahki, M Lebel; R Ntamack, A Dupont; R Neti (C Baille 47), J Marchand (capt) (P Mauvaka 47), D Aldegheri (D Ainu’u 51), R Arnold (yc 51-61), E Meafou, R Elstadt (A Jelonch 47), F Cros, T Flament.
Ref: L Pearce (England).
