Ronan O'Gara: Munster's snakes and ladders isn't my game now, but . . .

Last Friday night I got up off the sofa and did something I seldom am guilty of – heading for the sack without even saying goodnight to the clan and care. I had stayed until the last stray Munster kick of the night against Castres and should have had better things to fret over with Bristol Bears in town 24 hours later for a Champions Cup date.

Old habits, old flames and all that.

I went to bed angry at myself for getting frustrated. Why was I getting so exercised? This wasn’t my team any longer, Munster’s snakes and ladders isn’t my game now. But the defeat to Castres, the performance, lanced a boil and the rancid puss came out. A residue of frustration at the issues and standards and culture that has seen the former European champions tumble gracelessly backwards so far into the pack that they are no longer distinguishable, even in Europe, once their crucible.

Castres were no better. It felt like a Challenge Cup game. And eleven years after retirement, I looked at Munster and couldn’t see one distinguishing feature in their performance. Unremarkable. Where the possible seems impossible.

The quick-fried nature of modern-day analysis centred in on the errors of Jack Crowley, but of course anything beyond a cursory glance exposes that narrative as fundamentally flawed. In real terms, Castres were actually getting ready for the Top 14 this weekend, against Bordeaux Begles. They had a home record to protect but it mightn’t have taken a huge amount to turn their attentions back to domestic fare. On a sticky patch, we watched Munster erroneously try to run a French team around the pitch. 

That was never Munster, but I am all for a more expansive approach and keeping the ball alive. Except this wasn’t out of ambition. This was out of necessity, because they don’t have the cattle up front to take on and meet the meat of the Castres pack. Munster’s props stock tells you a lot. For sure there are bad luck stories with RG Snyman, Jean Kleyn and now Craig Casey, one of the squad’s actual radiators of good energy, is down and out with a knee injury. He will be missed.

There are a few stages of squad construction that takes a side from floaters to competitive to threatening to win the damn thing. Munster will always have a one-off in them. When they do, the next question isn’t long coming after - can they then back up a big performance with another? Now they are probably two or three levels away from the top table. Mike Prendergast, or whoever, has quite the body of work ahead. Sow's ears, silk purses and all that.

That’s not a great selling point, unless you are born into the Munster way. You must be able to sell the project and its ambition to players. That they see something they want to buy into. Players are players. How is this going to work for me… 

To be performing on the pitch, they need competitiveness in their squad. I saw the explanation this week for not involving Gavin Coombes in Castres, and it’s perfectly logical in one respect. But it’s hard to be listening to the Munster drums about Coombes not getting his chance with Ireland when he isn’t even involved for Munster’s biggest games in Europe, surely?

Watching Leinster against Clermont (who La Rochelle play Saturday), and Snyman et al coming off the bench, it is a stark comparison between provinces where once the difference was fag-paper thin.

IT MIGHT be that the Ireland conversation is stirring wicked nonsense into Jack Crowley’s head. Now, Jack needs to focus on getting the detail right while the rest of the commentariat worries about the Six Nations. I’d be forgetting Ireland and that debate for the time being, that’s done. Andy Farrell looks all in on Sam Prendergast. When you make the kicking errors Crowley was guilty of in Castres, it’s not good. You try hard, too hard, searching for something unattainable – perfection. It will never exist. He is over-analysing everything, looking for the sweet spot with everything. 

Sometimes you have to adopt the approach that I am going to get a belt or two, some things will go wrong, but I am going to do these three things well in this game, and you build back up your bank of good habits until the point where you don’t have to actively think about them anymore. That’s second nature. Which is the polar opposite to having his head mangled by 360 potential ideas or outcomes or scenarios and being frozen in the moment of delivery.

One thing: at least he cares deeply. That much is evident. If anything, he cares too much. He’s actually doing some of the ugly necessities really well, catching high ball, putting in great hits on Abraham Papalii. He’s fronting up for his team mates, but in his basic number ten duties he’s playing foul ball.

La Rochelle got a second tailwind from our awful home reverse to Vannes in beating Bristol. Irrespective of who the last two Champions Cup games were against, all we did is rebel against the putrid stuff from the previous Top 14 game. Any player with a scintilla of personal/professional pride will give you that. If we were in real flow and cohesive, there were more tries available. Which, if I can get hold of the group, will happen in three months’ time. That bit is on me. 

Everything is hard work for us at the moment, whereas you look at Toulouse at Exeter, and they scored from every opportunity. As Jack Crowley knows too well, it’s so much to do with confidence. There are times in a season where everything goes for you and life’s a bubble bath. We’re taking cold showers at the moment. If you are looking for a bounce it goes the other way. 

Toulouse put 64 points on Exeter, and in convincing yourself that they are peaking early, be advised of this: they have 30-33 guys who could play in their fifteen. The rest of us might have 25. Their ten tries could have come from anywhere at Sandy Park. If it isn’t Ahki, it’s Chocobares, if it’s not him, it’s Mallia, if not him it’s Kinghorne, if not him it’s Barassi, or Ntamack or Lebel, Ramos or Graou or God save us, Dupont. And we haven’t even mentioned the forwards. It’s a coach’s nirvana, to have that level of competition for places. The show runs itself, all you need to do is stay out of the way.

Over the next few weeks we have Clermont, then Perpignan, then Toulouse, then Leinster. We will have to use two different teams and the full squad over Christmas and into the new year. Leinster may not be quite where they usually are at the turn of the year, but you saw what a confident Top 14 in Clermont could do away to Leinster in the Aviva. They will only dying to come to our place.

One of our top players last weekend was Oscar Jegou. Such is life these days, that the range of issues and concerns we all deal with as broad and not quite as majestic as the Shannon river. Oscar is a good kid but in an Argentinian outpost he and Pau’s Hugo Auradou found themselves under investigation for sexual assault of a woman a few days after making their French international debuts. They were placed under house arrest for a month. Their world was turned upside down before, last week, the case against them was dismissed as the facts, as set out before a judge, ‘did not constitute a crime’.

In all of this, when we red headlines about people across the room from us it is too easy to forget we are dealing with a human being, and often without the appropriate training. When you’ve never walked that path, you don’t know what it looks like or how to properly deal with it. Does he need space or an arm around the shoulder?

The most important thing was getting him out of Argentina, and back into our environment, and the security of having his routine. He’s a diligent lad who works hard. Until he was cleared, there was always that black cloud and ‘what if’ in the back of his mind. At least now, he has the opportunity to move on with a clear mind, though it will take a month or two to process and then, he will hopefully kick on.

People have asked me, what’s the kid like? Whatever the opposite of tough to handle is, that’s Oscar. He’s a serious player, hopefully he will be in France’s 42-man squad for the Six Nations.

It won’t be long coming around.