Forget the cliches and the history, Munster overdue a win against Leinster in Thomond
A Scoring For Gavin Pic: Try On Big Munter Ahead: Way To Seb Night Daly/sportsfile Coombes His
Munster-Leinster. Thomond Park. The full house. Christmas time.
It’s a scene that can’t help but lend itself to clichés. To words like ‘fortress’ and ‘passion’ and ‘rivalry’, and to reminisces about meetings down the years when skin would fly and ears were burned.
“It is a tough place to go. I believe there will be 27,000 there to watch and adding to the atmosphere so it is always a battle, always a tight game. It’s one of those games you want to be involved in as a player and as a coach because you will test yourself.
“Munster are one of the top teams and they play at home in front of a vociferous crowd,” said Leinster coach Robin McBryde, “and that’s where you find out about yourself, when you look in the mirror and measure yourself, by going to places like Thomond Park.”
McBryde is part of a wider chorus here. Players and coaches from both sides of the blue-red divide have said much the same down the years. TV coverage of the game will likely start with a pulsating montage of battles past and promises of more to come.
The fact is that Leinster have won on each of their last five visits to Limerick and, if four of those have been one-score games, then maybe even such tight margins tell a tale of their own when it comes to this old rivalry.
When push comes to shove, Munster have invariably been left feeling blue.
It’s 2018 since Munster beat Leinster on home soil, two full decades since they put back-to-back wins together against them in Thomond. This is a fixture that needs a defiant and definitive stand from the hosts now more than ever.
There is already some disappointment in the red corner with Jack Crowley rested in line with the IRFU’s player welfare protocols. So there goes the much anticipated head-to-head between the Munster out-half and his opposite number.
Sam Prendergast will start for the visitors and, while it would have been fascinating to see these two compete just a month after a November window where the younger man had assumed control of the Ireland jersey, it just isn’t to be this time.
The visitors had signalled their intention to mix and match between this game and last week’s home defeat of Connacht, and so it is that Jordie Barrett, RG Snyman, Jack Conan and Jamison Gibson-Park are among those to sit this one out.
Coming in is a posse of top-shelf talent. Ireland captain Caelan Doris, James Ryan, Joe McCarthy, Ronan Kelleher, Robbie Henshaw and Garry Ringrose all start. Andrew Porter and Jordan Larmour are named on the bench.
Jamie Osborne lines out at full-back as he returns from injury.
It’s a strong side and squad. Facing them is a Munster team that will utilise Billy Burns as playmaker in Crowley’s absence and there are seven changes in all from the side that scraped a dramatic, late win away to Ulster last Friday.
Captain Tadhg Beirne, Rory Scannell, Burns, Ethan Coughlan, Dian Bleuler, Oli Jager and Alex Kendellen all come into the starting XV, and there is a positional switch for Tom Ahern as he moves to the back row.
Bleuler has completed return-to-play protocols to make his fourth start at loosehead prop but Peter O’Mahony (calf contusion), Conor Murray (elbow) and Jack O’Donoghue (shoulder) were unavailable for selection.
Munster are still dealing with a painfully long injury list - and operating without a permanent head coach, lest we forget – and their last two performances against Castres and Ulster have been fitful, frustrating affairs despite two very different results.
Leinster keep racking up those wins but their form has been unimpressive by their lofty standards, even if Munster defence coach Denis Leamy tagged them rather memorably as being “brilliantly boring” in the run up to this one.
Leamy knows the rivalry better than most from his days as a world-class back row in the red corner, three years spent coaching with Leinster, and now the current role with his native province. He has seen how the rivalry has evolved.
Munster were more accustomed to the bragging rights when he was playing, but more again has changed since. That edge is still there: who can forget Johnny Sexton throwing Joey Carbery to the ground in frustration in Limerick six years ago?
“Hopefully we'll never lose that,” said Leamy of the rivalry's emotional side.
“It means a lot to both camps, it certainly does. It means a lot to us. We'll have a packed stadium on Friday night. It'll be really buzzing and the boys really look forward to this fixture every Christmas. It's very special.
“The emotion part of it is always there. What I see with players these days is they're probably not as emotional as they maybe were 10 or 15 years ago. The emotion has kinda toned down a little bit but nonetheless there will be plenty of emotion on show no doubt on Friday night."
M Haley; C Nash, T Farrell, R Scannell, S Daly; B Burns, E Coughlan; D Bleuler, N Scannell, O Jager; F Wycherley, T Beirne; T Ahern, A Kendellen, G Coombes.
D Barron, K Ryan, J Ryan, B Gleeson, J Hodnett, P Patterson, T Butler, B O’Connor.
J Osborne; T O’Brien, G Ringrose, R Henshaw, J O’Brien; S Prendergast, L McGrath; J Boyle, R Kelleher, R Slimani; J McCarthy, J Ryan; R Baird, J van der Flier, C Doris.
L Barron, A Porter, C Health, B Deeny, S Penny, F Gunne, R Byrne, J Larmour.
S Grove-White (SRU).