Donal Lenihan: Front-loaded Sharks will waste no time in preying on Munster set-piece

Several of the Munster party carried happy memories of the DHL Stadium in Green Point when they returned to the venue of the province's most memorable performance in years when pilfering the URC trophy from under the noses of the Stormers in the 2023 grand final.

Five rounds into the current URC campaign, Munster have hit a serious speed bump, without a win on the road in any of their three away games to date. Looking to rectify that against an increasingly strong Sharks team in Kings Park, the scene of Ireland’s incredible win over South Africa in the second Test last July, in Durban on Saturday is going to be incredibly challenging.

The Sharks were woeful last season but, with big money behind them, have repatriated a number of quality Springboks to challenge for serious honours in the not-too-distant future. Chief among those is the return to arms of South Africa’s iconic skipper Siya Kolisi, who the Sharks rescued from a disastrous move to Racing 92 by agreeing to buy him out of his contract.

Just look at the composition of the front five that accounted for the URC champions Glasgow Warriors last weekend. Starting at loosehead prop: Ox Nche is the most disruptive scrummager in the game at present. Almost single-handedly, he dismantled the Australian and Argentinian scrum in the recent Rugby Championship.

Alongside him in the Sharks front row: Hooker Bongi Mbonambi and tight head Vincent Koch, both double World Cup winners. Powering that ferocious scrummaging unit from second row: the game's leading lock in Eben Etzebeth and the gargantuan Emile Van Heerden.

Backing up that potent partnership: A pair of former Munster locks in Gerbrandt Grobler and Jason Jenkins. If things weren’t challenging enough for the Warriors front row, Nche was replaced in the final quarter by yet another double World Cup winner in Trevor Nyakane — like Kolisi, also recently returned from Racing 92.

Compare those combinations to the cattle available to Graham Rowntree in the key front five sector. The failure of Munster’s hierarchy to address the ageing profile of the province’s front row resources over the last few seasons is finally coming home to roost.

One of the province's most consistent performers in recent seasons has been its most capped player, 36-year-old tighthead Stephen Archer. His contract expires on New Year’s Eve and right now Munster look even more vulnerable if they don’t seek to extend that immediately to the end of the season.

Archer was forced to play 80 minutes in the recent derby against Leinster at Croke Park before boarding the plane for Cape Town less than 48 hours after the final whistle. I hope they rewarded him with a berth in business class. Problem here, his direct replacement at the moment, John Ryan, is also 36 years of age.

To be fair, Munster did secure a very viable option in Oli Jager when he became available over a year ago after finally accepting that his dream of playing for New Zealand wasn’t going to happen, despite making 51 appearances in Super Rugby for the all-conquering Crusaders.

Jager is a giant of a man, a very good rugby player but not a disruptive scrummager. 

It's taking time for him to come to terms with the more combative style of the varied loosehead props he’s coming across in the URC and especially in Europe where a plethora of granite Georgian props feature for the French Top 14 clubs.

Things are even more pressing on the loosehead side of the scrum where Munster have become dangerously reliant on the presence of Jeremy Loughman. Right now, in the absence of the injured Josh Wycherley, John Ryan has also being tasked with covering that side of the scrum, despite not featuring there with any regularity since the early days of his career.

Dave Kilcoyne, 36 next December, offers the next line of cover but hasn’t featured yet this season due to injury. 22-year-old Kieran Ryan was thrown in at the deep end on 50 minutes last weekend. While acquitting himself really well in broken play, winning one excellent turnover, understandably he came under serious pressure in the scrum.

Over the years, setpiece solidity has been part of Munster’s DNA and the rock on which their game was founded. That has changed. 

Scrum apart, issues around the lineout, a serious problem since the start of the season, were in evidence again despite having enough tall timber in Jean Kleyn, Tadhg Beirne, Tom Ahern and Jack O'Donoghue to target in the air.

If the 69% success rate against Leinster from this traditionally smooth running sector was a worry coming into the Stormers game, an even worse return of 57% on Saturday will have left forwards coach Andy Kyriacou scratching his head. 

It highlighted once again the loss Peter O'Mahony is to the smooth functioning of Munster’s lineout.

Succession planning is a key element of any professional setup and, with the aging profile of its front row stock, Munster look exposed and vulnerable in this key sector. It hasn’t helped that just when Hawaiian import Roman Salanoa was beginning to make progress when contributing off the bench in Munster’s URC winning campaign in 2023, injury intervened. He hasn’t featured for Munster since that URC final.

The frustrating thing is that Munster have a very strong cohort of impressive young talent coming through in the back five of the scrum in the sizeable shape of Ahern, second row Edwin Edogbo, his brother Sean, and the hugely exciting back row pair of Ruadhán Quinn and Brian Gleeson.

Couple them with Gavin Coombes, whose workrate has improved steadily in recent outings, and an outstanding duo of hardworking open sides in John Hodnett and Alex Kendellen. Munster have a core of exciting homegrown forwards to build on.

The big problem however, especially when facing South African opposition in the URC and the powerful French packs — think Stade Francais and Castres coming down the line in the Champions Cup  —is if you don’t have solidity at the set piece, you’re going to suffer.

A longer term concern surrounds the lack of emerging front rowers banking a level of experience while the likes of Archer and Ryan are still around. Contrast that with Leinster who, over the last few weeks of URC action alone, have started young props in Jack Boyle, Tom Clarkson, and Michael Milne alongside seasoned campaigners Andrew Porter, Tadhg Furlong, and Rabah Slimani.

Injuries to world class hookers Dan Sheehan and Rónan Kelleher should be holding them back but recent Ireland U20s stars Gus McCarthy and Stephen Smith along with other emerging talents in Lee Barron, who excelled against Munster, and John McKee have served to highlight the depth of their succession planning in this highly attritional sector.

On the positive front, Munster continue to grow their impressive attacking game under the watchful eye of Mike Prendergast. We saw, on several occasions against Leinster, their ability to play around their increasingly aggressive blitz defence, being fine-tuned even further this season by Jacques Nienaber, when finding space on the outside channels.

But for a number of borderline forward passes against Leinster and the Stormers, Munster would have registered a few more tries at key moments. 

The problem, however, is it’s becoming increasingly difficult for Munster’s half backs, Craig Casey, or Conor Murray, along with Jack Crowley, to drive that when the set piece is faltering and the breakdown is yielding slow ball.

Right now, heading into the Sharks den on Saturday, Rowntree is worryingly short of options to plug the holes up front against another powerhouse South African front five. 

I’m fascinated to see the combination former Ireland forwards coach, current Sharks head John Plumtree, is set to unleash. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to identify where his first point of attack is going to be.