Munster supporters wanted RG Snyman to be a bystander, if not innocent, then innocuous at Croke Park on Saturday evening. Under those circumstances they might have been fleetingly tolerant or magnanimous about his decision to leave Limerick for Dublin and join their bitterest provincial rivals during the summer.
There were certain terms and conditions attached, foremost of which was that Munster had to triumph in this United Rugby Championship (URC) round-four clash. Nowhere in the small print, or otherwise, was it permissible for Snyman to bite the hand that used to feed. He did, though, take a chunk out of it, and a pretty big one at that in real terms during his 49 minutes on the pitch.
The backstory. The South African double World Cup winner suffered an injury-ravaged four years at Munster: two torn ACLs and shoulder/chest surgery saw him sidelined for the majority of his time at the province. In the second half of last season, he showed glimpses of his prodigious talent, especially when scoring three tries in a five-game spell.
When Munster were forced to choose between keeping Jean Kleyn or Snyman and elected for the former, Leinster couldn’t believe their good fortune and offered Snyman a solution. Why wouldn’t they? He’s an outstanding player. Munster, players and supporters, were well aware of his capabilities. And therein lay the rub, a nightmare scenario, but with the very real prospect that he could haunt their waking moments on a pitch.
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Snyman knew the “grief” that would descend from the stands at Croke Park, if he was stationed within earshot of the red-shirted hordes. He got a mouthful as the teams warmed up. “I was kind of expecting that,” he said. “We picked a really bad corner to warm up in; I felt all the Munster supporters were sitting there.”
Not that he was complaining. “I felt it in the warm-up, but it is always in good spirit.” It was their prerogative too. When a player switches between rivals, the person’s likeability is superseded by a shirt colour over the 80 minutes, and for those who can’t let go, beyond.
Snyman would have hoped for an early impact but not the one that materialised when he was penalised from the kickoff for inadvertently providing Mike Haley with a bumpy landing after the Munster fullback jumped in the air to claim the ball.
The South African’s first positive engagement came on three minutes, his one-handed lineout take and delivery to Jamison Gibson-Park, fluency in motion. He claimed another soon after before Leinster set about helping themselves to Munster ball, getting after the red Barron, Diarmuid, in the air.
[ Early Leinster onslaught impressive, but Munster should have seen it comingOpens in new window ]
The replacement hooker’s first action was to throw to a lineout after temporarily replacing Niall Scannell, one that was picked off by James Ryan. The blue Barron, Lee, fared better.
In the motion of freeing his hands to offload through the tackle of Jeremy Loughman, Snyman’s forearm contacted his opponent’s face, an accidental rugby incident, so to speak. The ball dropped to the ground but was not ruled a knock-on by the officials, a decision exacerbated from a Munster perspective by the fact that in an extension of this sequence of play, Leinster scored a try.
Snyman played an important carrying role in the build-up to the Caelan Doris try, threw Ryan into the Dublin sky as a lifter on a couple of lineout throws, while putting Jack O’Donoghue and Gavin Coombes on the floor in tackles, two of nine on the evening. O’Donoghue exacted some revenge when slapping the ball out of Snyman’s hands at a lineout soon after.
While a couple of Munster players managed to get a proper shoulder on the South African, he demonstrated his power with a wincing legal clear-out on Tom Farrell.
And then for the Munster supporters, the unthinkable happened, Snyman barged through the attempted tackles of Stephen Archer, Craig Casey and Scannell to score Leinster’s fourth and bonus-point try. He admitted: “It was nice to get over the line; there was someone latching [on to] me,” not that he required that additional impetus.
His post-interval contribution was more muted, a scruffy pivot pass to Hugo Keenan that forced the fullback to jam on the brakes and he was sidestepped by Munster centre Alex Nankivell but tackles on Calvin Nash and Kleyn underlined his diligence in defence.
On 49 minutes, he was replaced by Ryan Baird, to a mixed soundtrack. He observed, diplomatically: “The atmosphere, I can’t really put it into words. Coming off the field, it was special to see everyone’s reaction.”
Ryan was the better Leinster secondrow on the day in terms of overall output but even the most one-eyed onlooker knows that as Snyman gets closer to peak condition, his influence, already appreciable, will increase further.
Perhaps the most measured reaction to Snyman on the evening was that of his former team-mate, Munster fullback Haley, whose mischievous “salute”, as they approached one another to shake hands after the game, had just about the right tone and content; both players laughed.
