MUNSTER 38
GLASGOW WARRIORS 17
IF a match really is won, as the cliche has it, by the team that wants it most, Glasgow were on a hiding to nothing in Limerick on Saturday. Munster were there to honour their late coach Anthony Foley in their first game since his death six days earlier, and they were always going to be inspired by the occasion and spurred on by an emotional crowd.
Yet the Warriors, for all that those special circumstances were against them, could and should have played a lot better. They came into this Champions Cup match on the back of an exceptional result, the home win over Leicester eight days earlier, and with Gregor Townsend’s demands for greater consistency still fresh in their memories. But instead of asserting themselves, they became, for a day, rugby’s equivalent of the Washington Generals, the basketball team whose downtrodden role in life was to turn up and lose to the Harlem Globetrotters.
Townsend’s team were second best in every aspect of play: they were screwed into the ground in the scrum, bullied at the breakdown, deficient in defence. They played for an hour against 14 men after Keith Earls’ red card for a dangerous tackle on Fraser Brown, but as the coach rightly said, it felt like they were playing against 15 throughout - and against that capacity crowd, whose sombre mood in the hours beforehand was transformed into one of roaring, passionate self-assertion during the match itself.
The teams had agreed that the game should be played just a day after Foley’s funeral, and they had found common cause by saying it should be treated as a celebration of the coach and of his commitment to rugby. In other words, there would be no quarter asked or offered, which on Munster’s part was tantamount to saying to Glasgow: “Come here and play at your best, your fiercest. Not only will we tolerate it, we’ll welcome it.”
But they did not play at their best, and while the unique nature of the occasion was a contributory factor, the worry has to be that the Warriors still have flaws that will be exposed in the months to come too, making their qualification from Pool One improbable. The vulnerability they displayed here, in the collision and in defence, was also shown up in their home PRO12 defeat by Ulster late last month. On their day, their lyricism in attack can make your heart sing, but those days are still too infrequent.
“It wasn't us out there,” Townsend said after the match, in which his team conceded five tries - three in a first half which ended with them 24-3 down. “It's a surprise to see a different Glasgow team. I understand how something like that can happen - obviously, this was not a normal rugby game. But I did believe from what I had seen in training and hearing the players talking that we would put up a fight and play well.
“In a game like that you see the players who are working really hard, and there were a few out there, so [I’m] very proud of their efforts. What you want to see is a reaction from those who didn't play as well. Some did show a reaction late in the game, but others will have to wait till next week.”
That reaction produced two tries, from substitutes Pat MacArthur and Mark Bennett, which briefly saw the visitors come within sight of a losing bonus point before Rory Scannell got his team’s fifth. Munster’s first had come after four minutes, and they were 14-3 up by the time Earls was sent off.
A dismissal often changes the course of a contest, sometimes ruins it, but the departure of the winger only confirmed the game in its course. Far more committed and coherent, Munster added another touchdown before the break, then in the first score of the second half were awarded a penalty try after putting the Glasgow scrum through the mincer.
One consolation for the Warriors, as they contemplate what it will take to qualify for the quarter-finals, is that Munster will not reach this level of performance in all of their pool games. Another, according to Townsend, is the fact they already have five points in a group which could be very tight.
“To get five points from the two games would have been a decent target beforehand. We know how hard it is to play at Thomond Park and how tough a team Leicester are. But to go from scoring five tries and defending really well, attacking with pace and putting a huge work rate in - then not to do that in the second game is disappointing.
“The other pools are also suggesting that teams are going to beat each other. There weren’t many bonus point victories in the first round. We have to make sure we do well in the home-and-away games against Racing, score more points over the two games than they do, and we have to show that we can play better away from home.”
Scorers: Munster: Tries: Bleyendaal, Taute, Zebo, penalty try, Scannell. Cons: Bleyendaal 4, Keatley. Pen: Bleyendaal.
Glasgow: Tries: MacArthur, Bennett. Cons: Hogg 2. Pen: Russell.
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