Munster are coming off the back of a relatively unsuccessful couple of weeks in South Africa, as pressure mounts on the southern province.
There are expectations in Munster that they should get more than one bonus point in two games, despite their difficulties with player availability and two tough challenges away from home against The Stormers and Sharks.
They've managed to pick up away wins in South Africa in each of the last couple of seasons and while their form isn’t where they’d like it to be, Rowntree and his coaches would have been looking for a scalp in South Africa before the four-week break from URC action to inject some energy into their season.
Going into an extended break after back-to-back losses will be frustrating for Rowntree. While it might be a welcomed break to reset and regroup, all you want to do when you have a run of frustrating performances is get back out on the field and right some wrongs.
On the other hand, Munster have been struggling with injuries up front, as well as limited availability for a couple of the Emerging Ireland team. A four week break from competitive action might be coming at just the right time.
It isn’t a complete four week break for Munster, however. They’ve managed to secure another touring fixture, this time with the All Blacks XV.
The last time they played a touring side was the South African XV in November, 2022. They were in similar form back then, fraught with injuries and missing their international cohort.
That time they had eight players going into Irish camp with a further 12 injuries to senior players. They had a rocky start to their season with back-to-back losses in the opening two weekends, at the hands of Cardiff and Dragons. They also lost to Connacht in the opening five rounds, which was made increasingly difficult with losses to Leinster and Ulster before November.
Such was their injury difficulties at the time, Kiran McDonald was brought in on loan in the second row and immediately made his debut on the historic night in Pairc Ui Chaoimh.
Things don’t feel altogether dissimilar at present in Munster. They’ve had a couple of defeats on the trot, and a shock defeat to Zebre. They conceded 75 points in their opening two rounds.
A highly competitive fixture could be just what their injury-ridden squad needs. Some guys will be returning to action and need a competitive fixture to get them up to speed. For example, Rory Scannell was thrust into action last weekend after a long term ankle injury, starting at inside centre against an almost fully internationally capped Sharks side. His involvement is said to have been expediated due to the injury sustained by Alex Nankivell, among other injuries to the likes of Abrahams, Daly, Liam Coombes and Kilgallen.
There’s no doubt that Scannell would welcome another game in the midfield, when precious league points can’t be earned or squandered.
Add Paddy Patterson to that list of players that will be rearing to go. He has been out injured, on and off for around 18 months. He was coincidentally named player of the match when South Africa visited Cork two years ago, and could feature this weekend in another exhibition game. With Casey and Murray in Irish camp, Patterson would be perceived to be next in line, should he get fully back up to speed.
Munster’s depth in the front row has been tested enormously. Getting another game into the likes of Ronan Foxe, Kieran Ryan and any of the next in-line at hooker, would be a great opportunity to bring players up to speed for their involvement in a URC game against The Lions at the end of November, before being propelled into European action.
While it might feel like there’s a bit of doom and gloom around Munster at the moment, aside from the shock defeat at the hands of Zebre, not much else is out of the ordinary.
Beating Leinster in Croke Park was always going to be difficult, and objectively, going to The Stormers and The Sharks in back to back weeks was a tough ask. I say objectively because nobody in Munster will believe that they should be losing to any of those teams.
Realistically, if they took their standard victory away at Zebre we wouldn’t be talking about the pressure they’re under. If they picked off any of the three fixtures between Leinster, The Stormers and The Sharks, then you could be talking them up as a team capable of repeating their league win of two years ago.
They’re creating an awful lot of chances. Even last weekend, despite allowing The Sharks some easy access to their try line, Munster fired enough shots and had enough possession to win most games.
However, the worry is that they need to be quite innovative when creating and executing most of their opportunities currently.
Their set piece is far from dominant , which is why we’ve seen so many attempts at a tap and go. Blunt force trauma, their attacking maul and scrum aren’t the weapons that make the game much easier. They’ve been kick passing and using their tap and go options quite frequently.
Munster coughed up a lot of chances in The Sharks half last weekend. And when you can’t go back to the dominant basics of the set piece, something that Munster rugby is renowned for, it can be difficult to win against better quality opposition.
The injuries to Munster’s tight five is certainly being felt and they’ve been working very hard to get over the line in attack.
While they’ll be satisfied enough at how much opportunity they are creating, they need to become more efficient at converting that possession and territory into scores, while clamping down on the ease at which teams are scoring against them.
Denis Leamy will be glad of some reprieve in the next few weeks to get more of his senior players into his corner and hopefully retain a more consistent selection to secure a more solid defence, a defence that we’ve come to expect from Munster.
While there’ll be some soul searching in Limerick, they’ve been in this position before and know exactly how to turn this difficult period into success at the end of the year.
This weekend’s game against The All Blacks XV could prove to be a difficult drain on resources, yet it could be just the spark that Munster need, akin to their trip to Cork in November 2022.
