GERRY THORNLEYlistens as Munster captain Paul O'Connell and Scarlets coach Nigel Davies outline where the match was won and lost yesterday
ON THE face of it, if you’d offered Munster four wins from four with a six-point lead in such a pool of sharks, and with Northampton out of contention, they’d have bitten your hand off along with the Christmas pudding.
But now that they eked out four one-score wins, by a combined total of 14 points, they are not inclined to swing from the rafters.
“It’s hard to say really because four (wins) from four you’d think we’ve been really dominant, but we haven’t been,” reckoned Paul O’Connell. “Every game has been really tight, they’ve been very narrow winning margins in all of them so we won’t be getting ahead of ourselves. It’s kind of a strange pool in that everyone is capable of beating everyone.
“You look at what Castres did to Northampton and Northampton nearly won the tournament last season, so those are our two games coming up and they’re going to be two very tough games. We know as well as anyone how tight they’ve been and we could easily be in a lot worse situation here, so we’ve just got to keep our heads down and make sure we fight for everything again in early January.”
His “frustration” with yesterday’s performance, in particular another slow start punctuated by missed first-up tackles if good scramble defence, was palpable, and he refuted the suggestion they were almost being too churlish with themselves.
“I think it was plain for all to see that we did a lot of very good things but I think we were our own worst enemies at times. You got to make those tackles and we’ve got to exit our own half of the pitch a little bit better at times, particularly when we went 19-6 ahead.
“We probably needed to play the game a bit more down there and put them under a bit of pressure and we didn’t always do that. We knocked on balls, we conceded possession and turned over the ball and it just puts you under a lot of pressure.”
Nevertheless, there was satisfaction in having rediscovered their winning edge.
“That’s it and that’s all you’ve got to do. You can play all the fabulous rugby in the world, but if you’re not winning it’s not much good to anyone.
“We’re doing a lot of things really well; we’ve just got to do them really well for 80 minutes more consistently. If we can do that we can be a really good side in this competition.”
For all his complaints about the 50-50 calls that went against his team, Scarlets coach Nigel Davies duly recognised the host’s ferocious winning desire.
“Munster want to win. They’re desperate to win. They’ve got a huge will to win. And they’ve got some quality players who know how to drive the team forward, particularly Paul O’Connell and Ronan O’Gara, who know how to drive the team forward.
“And they have talented players as well. But there’s a real burning desire for them to succeed. We knew that.
“It was interesting to read in the press this morning as to whether we had the stomach. I think we did that, we fronted up. I’m very proud of these boys, but we need to drive this team harder to be successful in these tight games. Experience will help, getting those key moments right and the unforced errors. What we can control. The game is a martial art in the breakdown and we need to be more clever and clinical there.”
