Ronan O'Gara: This will take a mammoth effort from Munster to beat Castres
Has Le Called Fly Brun Louis The Threat: Into Half Castres' Squad Been French
MUNSTER have an important ace in the hole for Friday night’s Champions Cup test of their mettle in Castres. Mike Prendergast knows the dog nights of the French rugby badlands better than anyone at home could possibly hope to. If one were to blend into a cocktail all the key ingredients of a Top 14 away day, one would hardly come up with as perfect a storm as Castres, the small rugby town with the big heart.
It’s Munster in Europe and that will always bring a sprinkle of something with it but scanning the Castres selection for the Stade Pierre-Fabre, I assure you this will take a mammoth effort from Munster to beat that team.
Jeremy Davidson is targeting this as a pair with next week’s Top 14 home game against Bordeaux-Begles. After Christmas they have a cold turkey and stuffing sandwich in Bayonne. The next two are their targets, and the selection and how it differs radically from the one that lost to Northampton less than a week ago says as much.
Let me paint a picture. This was a cranky, godawful week’s training in Castres. I don’t even know for sure what the vibe is like knowing that their head coach is leaving at the end of the season, but Davidson and co know they can’t go hard at it after Munster and before Bordeaux, even allowing for the extra day. They need a win Friday night not so much for their European ambitions – such as they are – but for their Top 14 wellbeing.
They get old-school motivated, can’t lose at home; that is their focus. Whatever of the coaching dynamic, these things are relative in the context of a European Friday night at home. As sure as baguettes are bread, they will be up for Munster big time.
They’ve beaten La Rochelle and Montpellier there in recent weeks but there were enough sub-standard phases in both games to give Mike Prendergast plenty to be getting on with. If Munster can get at their backbone, they have a good chance of projecting Castres minds a week ahead to their tie with Bordeaux-Begles. But don’t get lulled by that. Castres have shed a few of their overseas contingent, and a bit of bulk with it, but they have Leone Nakawara, who should be well known to all for his facility to do the unexpected and in his fellow Fijian centre, Andrea Cocagi, they have a very dangerous ball carrier. Ditto their eight, the former Connacht back row Abraham Papalii.
The former Crusader Jack Goodhue is a good midfielder but he may need some heft around him. The ex-Bayonne flyer Remy Baget is a threat on the wing and out half Louis Le Brun has been involved in the French set up this season. Palis on the wing and Dumora at full back will complement Baget well, and up front the former Harlequin, Will Collier, is a very impressive scrummager who’s been causing a lot of damage in the Top 14.
Munster have gone with a 6-2 split on the bench which is not a great surprise. Mike knows exactly what he will be coming up against. Three chances in ten this game will be won by the backs.
Castres is only fifty or so miles from Toulouse, but a world away in some ways. Toulouse have Exeter Chiefs away this weekend in Europe but it isn’t that relevant. They have got themselves in that delightful position of irrespective who lines out for them, they want to bate the shit out of the opposition from minute one to eighty. What a great feeling to have. That is exactly what I want for our lads. If Toulouse are 20 points better than the opposition, they best them by 20 points. They decimated Ulster 61-21 and they were 40 points a better side on the day.
That’s being a killer.
Bristol come to La Rochelle on Saturday having lost to Leinster in a manner unfairly represented by the full-time result. Losing AJ McGinty in the opening few minutes, especially against Leinster, is a game-changer but they still had the visitors under the pump for the first half an hour. The Toulouse performance was better than the Leinster performance and the problem I have with the received wisdom they only have to avoid each other to appear in next May’s final in Cardiff is that one of them will probably have to go through La Rochelle. And we will be fighting.
We looked like jelly on jam in the first half in Bath but the problem still is one minute we look like lads posting first-class honour and then on the turnover, look like we should be back in kindergarten. The exaggeration is only slight. There doesn’t seem to be any middle ground with us, it’s either 8/9 out of ten. Or it’s two.
We had a brilliant first period, 21-6 up, and at the end of the half, if we were killers, it should have been game over. We isolated Finn Russell and his winger, Seuteni chop tackled, Alldritt and Latu were hovering and the turnover looked inevitable. As inevitable as turning the screw. But Latu pushed Greg too hard and we couldn’t get the penalty. That’s the game right there. But because of our fragile nature, as soon as Bath get their first try, it opens all the wounds again.
What we got was a reaction to a horror show at home to Vannes the week before, and had little to do with rugby. This weekend against Bristol is about rugby and being able to implement our game. And our game at the moment isn’t the Toulouse game, because their confidence and skill levels are better than ours right now. But we have a very good scrum, a good lineout, good phase game and we also have the capacity to defend well. What we need to get better at is killing teams when we have them on the rack.
One other Champions Cup point to make, even if it’s a tangential one. I now see where all the hot air about Sam Prendergast was coming from. I thought the Leinster lad was one of the best players of the Champions Cup opening round, and his best moment was a drilled spiral that went out on the full, albeit it landed about a metre too far. With that in the locker, it’s a big weapon to have.
But there’s so much more to him, even now. I didn’t see what the Leinster fuss was, but I get it now even though the vibes coming from Irish camp for the autumn series were this guy has it. Well, I remained a doubter, even if my body of evidence was shallow.
My bad. Those bearing witness have seen him Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday and they clearly know what they know. The rest of us are beginning to see it now, how coaches get what we don’t. And he will only get better.
He’s not 22 til February by which time he may have a couple of big Six Nations starts under his belt.
Or not. The big mistake Jack Crowley can make in the interim and especially in this Champions Cup is focusing on things beyond his wheelhouse. Don’t look over the garden gate when you’ve so much to tidy up yourself. It’s a classic mistake that I made. You focus too much on the opposition. Crowley’s got to keep working on his improvements and eliminating the two or three small technical and tactical errors he is making that are spoiling his report card.
Castres will be a good exam for him.