After beating Toulouse, Rob Penney revealed they had seen consistent pictures of where they could attack the four-time champions. Exhausting them through the phases early on, then imposing the Munster maul to attack around the fringes, and then finally out wide, they put Toulouse to the sword.
Alas, facing into an altogether more confident, in-form Toulon side in the Stade Velodrome, Penney wryly conceded that no such consistent pictures were emerging from their homework on Bernard Laporte’s expensively assembled squad of global galacticos.
“Unfortunately no. The fractures are very few and far between. That’s always a bit disconcerting when you’re coming up against a team that have got strengths across the park and have shown very limited pictures in terms of where they might be fragile.
“And on the other side of it, where they have shown some fragility, because of the nature of who they’ve got in their key playing roles, their work-rate is just outstanding. There just seem to be people prepared to work their arses off to cover any fractures that may occur. So the short answer is ‘no’, the long answer is ‘bugger’,” he said cheerily.
"Someone asked me if it was like playing a team of mercenaries but I don't think for a moment they're mercenaries. I think they're very proud international-class players that are getting well remunerated for doing a great job with a great club and they're very proud of what they're doing and that just makes it that much more tough."
Clinging on
"I don't think they will fear us at all," ventured Penney, whereas it might have been a different matter in Thomond Park
“ There’ll be times,” he added, “as there is any fixture, where you’re just clinging on for dear life and sometimes those moments are the defining moments when you either come away with a success or you don’t.”
“Just about every player in their squad has some form of international experience and they’ll be preparing for an international. They’ve talked about doing the double. They’ve booked their accommodation in Cardiff so they’re expecting to be in the final,” he revealed, with a hint of dipping into the old Munster zeitgeist.
He confirmed that Munster will be prepared to have a go when the opportunity arises, as you know a team of his will do, amid a belief they are better than they were a year ago.
“The one thing that I’d like to think the Munster boys have now is a belief in themselves and when they need to go to the well they know there is going to be water there because they are going to have to go there a few times on Sunday, and that belief not only in what we’re trying to do as a team and in themselves is going to be critical to us getting close. And if we are close anything is possible.”
Penney confirmed that Casey Laulala (fractured bone in his hand) and James Cronin (ankle strain) would both be fit, Donnacha Ryan (knee) trained partially yesterday and was not out of the reckoning, while he would give JJ Hanrahan until tomorrow in the unlikely event he will have completed a "miraculous" recovery from a moderately torn groin.
The coach has not been sleeping well this week, and has generally been up early, as there’s so much to do. “If the stats sheet reads we’ve missed 10/12 per cent of our tackles, then we’re not going to be anywhere near it,” he admitted when discussing the difficulties in either chop-tackling or going too high on their go-to forwards or the human wrecking ball that is Mathie Bastareaud.
A victory “would be an amazing achievement for the group, for the boys,” yet further hope comes with Munster’s famed ability against the odds.
"There's a deep resilience there. I think they genuinely care for each other and they feel obligated to play for each other. The history of Munster and the Heineken Cup is a special one and we've got some quality players here too. But this is another level again and that's why I'm hesitant to be too overt about it because this is something a lot of our guys have never confronted before and it will be interesting to see what happens on Sunday."
Heavily outnumbered
The Red Army are another factor in this, albeit that even if the 4,000 tickets sold will be swelled by ex-pats and so forth, they will be heavily outnumbered.
“The beautiful thing is, because Munster has a very rural feel to it, they feel as though they own the boys and the boys have a deep responsibility to those people that travel.”
“There wouldn’t be . . . the finance around the place in the Munster region for people to just go offshore. But people save and scrimp and get the money somehow, get a ticket and the boys are just unbelievably humble about the way in which they are regarded by their supporters and by the way in which their supporters will go to any length for them.
“That’s a massive motivational factor and a massive obligation that the boys really feel. They feel a responsibility to do a great job and perform well for their people.”
