After a deserved 24-18 bonus-point win for Leinster against Munster in Saturday’s United Rugby Championship round four fixture, Planet Rugby picks out five takeaways from the Irish derby.
The top line
Munster lit up last season’s early URC exchanges with an ambush win at Croke Park 12 months ago, and their brand of lightning very nearly struck again across the capital city at the Aviva Stadium, where they led for 56 minutes before wilting to Leinster’s stubbornness.
With Storm Boelo knocking about on a full moon evening, Munster got the scoreboard moving with a seventh-minute Charlie O’Shea penalty kick after James Ryan had tackled too high. Keenly fought exchanges followed before the visitors’ greater enthusiasm and better accuracy at the breakdown told.
It was a 27th-minute gallop from Sean O’Brien into open country that shattered the home defence, and the supporting Craig Casey then handled to allow Shane Daly to make it to the line for the converted score despite Hugo Keenan’s despairing effort.
A monster O’Shea penalty kick from halfway soon followed after Joey Carbery became illegally tangled up at the breakdown, and it was only then that Leinster finally responded, eating into the 13-0 score with a glorious Jamison Gibson-Park pass getting Tommy O’Brien in out wide for a 34th-minute unconverted try.
The eight-point gap was eventually eaten into after a second-half period of pressure, ignited with a correctly reversed penalty incident involving Ronan Kelleher, ending with five-metre scrum penalties resulting in Ryan Baird’s 54th-minute converted try.
A yellow card was also shown to Alex Nankivell, making it a double-whammy concession for Munster. Leinster then profited from this man-up situation, a fluffed Tadhg Beirne lineout catch resulting in the pressure that culminated in Charlie Tector’s 63rd-minute lead-taking unconverted try.
At 17-13 there was hope that Munster could muster a response but their momentum gone, it was Leinster who finished things off with their bonus point try, Gibson-Park firing off another worldie of a pass to enable Jamie Osborne to grab the 73rd-minute score.
To their credit, Clayton McMillan’s side did grab a losing bonus point with Ben O’Connor’s 82nd-minute try, but the visitors trooped off with regret that a winning position wasn’t better protected.
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Andy Farrell’s team talk
Last Wednesday’s latest Ireland squad announcement suggested that McMillan wouldn’t have to open his mouth to fire up his Munster team for this URC derby.
Seventeen Leinster picks and just two from Munster was a new low in the different Test-level fortunes of these provinces, with further pain inflicted by the inclusion of nine players from Ulster and eight from Connacht, two teams that Munster consistently finished above every season in the league.
Their fury delivered a warm response, Munster securing a healthy 13-point lead but despite generating breakdown nuisance in the guise of Gavin Coombes and possessing tackle-their-hearts-out contributors in the form of Marcus van der Merwe and Alex Kendellen, they ran out of gas in the second half.
New signing Kieran Brookes didn’t cover himself in second-half glory. Instead of Munster potentially having a penalty kick for a 16-5 lead, the TMO discovered he had pushed Kelleher off the ball, resulting in the penalty reversal, where insult was added by back-to-back scrum penalties before Baird’s try.
It was in this window that Munster suffered the self-inflicted wound that was the beginning of the end for them, but they also found the passing of Gibson-Park unstoppable. The Leinster No.9’s two try assists were ridiculous pieces of skill and that quality told even though just six points separated the teams at the finish.
Munster weren’t helped by their indiscipline, the penalty count going 17-11 against them with a yellow card also thrown into the mix after an opening half where their level of grit was seen in the generous number of turnovers that came their way.
Sheehan at No.8
There is an adage in rugby to let specialist position players play those specialist positions so that you play to your strengths, but Leinster decided to gamble with this premise by positioning hooker Dan Sheehan at No.8 rather than at hooker, where he is viewed as world-class.
It was last April when the positional switch first happened, with Leo Cullen making a mid-game tactical switch in the Champions Cup quarter-final win over Sale, but amid injuries and an absence of faith in Max Deegan, the head coach opted to give the hooker a first-time start at No.8.
The winners will claim that the experiment was a success. After all, the post-game stats credited the skipper with a chart-topping 17 carries and a 60-metre gain, but the ruse wasn’t that easy on the eye at times. It was at a 20th-minute scrum when we first got to see him attack at No. 8, and some metres were made before he was tackled outside the 22.
Munster’s Coombes was the more effective eight in the opening half, and it was only when Leinster were invited to take control from the 50th minute onwards did we get to see better Sheehan involvements, although he won’t want to recall the 61st minute incident that was getting penalised with the poaching Beirne all over him.
He remained in the back row after Kelleher was replaced by sub hooker Gus McCarthy, who soon misplaced a lineout throw from five metres out that could have been costly before Leinster eventually claimed their bonus.
Masters versus apprentice
The Joey versus Charlie head-to-head at No.10 was a fun watch on a cold night. It’s incredible to think a decade had passed since a fresh-faced Carbery lit up Leinster in Cullen’s second season in charge.
There we were, though, watching the 30-year-old on a stormy Saturday, making his first start back at the club he exited for Munster in 2018, a bold switch that unfortunately never worked out due to a rotten run with injury.
Jack Crowley eventually became Munster’s go-to 10 but with McMillan’s fancy sideline (there must be something ick in the Munster waters), the baton passed to 20-year-old rookie O’Shea ahead of the benched JJ Hanrahan and a lovely contest brewed up between the rivals.
O’Shea had the better of the early exchanges. He demonstrated he was more reliable off the kicking tee than his older adversary – that long-range first-half penalty was a peach, highlighting how huge his confidence was after he slipped a slick short pass to get O’Brien through the hole for Munster’s opening try.
Experience, however, eventually told. A younger Carbery might have wilted in the frustration of seeing an accuracy-lacking Leinster struggle, but he had the composure to become the more influential 10 when the contest turned in the second half.
The cheer received when he went off near the finish was deserved, but O’Shea deserves plenty of kudos for the part he played.
The derby crowd
Rugby tickets have become a talking point in Ireland with the national team struggling to get overpriced seats sold for their brutally timed matches with Argentina and Fiji. Thankfully, this URC derby offered better value for money and a healthy bank holiday weekend attendance turned up despite the weather and the reduced level of train services.
Understandably, the majority of fans were backing blue as it was a Leinster home game. But the Irish rivalry was set aside in the eighth minute when the crowd united in a minute-long applause to commemorate 10 years since the tragic passing of Anthony Foley.
A picture of the former Munster coach from his playing days was put up on the two stadium screens, and the applause lasted a full 60 seconds while play continued on the pitch. It was a lovely serious moment, and it was apt that it took place at a time when Foley’s old side were 3-0 up.
Less serious was the crowd hilarity that greeted referee Andrew Brace getting sucked into a play-stopping 32nd-minute breakdown. The official was caught in the wrong place as Sheehan came around the corner and he ended up going off his feet, feeling the impact of the collision and a scrum being needed to restart play.