Munster Rugby - Semi Conscious, the Series Finale??? - 2020/21

[Ruckedtobits]

Impressed by Wincherly & Coombes, not by Haley or Casey. POM was very stupid, both times. Farrell, Cronin & Ryan earned their corn and de Allende & O'Donoghue both showed touches of class. Ben Healy showed his temperament off the tee but some of his decisions and execution initially looked off the pace.

A good, no great, win for Munster on the basis of how they played in their own half. But they took their tries well and never dropped the head. Very impreessed with de Allende's commitment & leeadership.

[munster#1]

Great win by Munster. Never easy to play away to Scarletts.

Delighted for Healy to have nailed that kick, will do his confidence the world of good.

Not pretty, but a win is a win

[domhnallj]

Good god, ridiculous from POM there.

The elbow drop? Ridiculous. He could be gone now....

Also the Scarlets player doing the knee slide just as Farrell scores, dunno why that's tolerated.

Genuinely thought all the replays were to decide whether to card their 21. No idea how they missed it.

[Sugary tae]

You can never beat the welsh enough

Some good a lot bad. Inability to work out how to play the ref was telling.
Worked the tries well.
Fineen and gav coming of age
Could be a huge result for the conference

[dropkick]

The form players came on and munster had to play some rugby. Great comeback but the first 60 min were bad. Box kicking from just outside the Scarlets' 22 summed it up for me.


Healy has to start next week. Hes far from the finished product but no harm getting him up to speed now.


Coombes was immense again. Only got 135 min last season which is a mystery to me.

[blockhead]

Good god, ridiculous from POM there.

The elbow drop? Ridiculous. He could be gone now....

Also the Scarlets player doing the knee slide just as Farrell scores, dunno why that's tolerated.

This.
Should have been at least yellow for that. I actually thought that was what they (TMO/ref/nigel) were looking at.

JJ had a mare but Healy showed some balls and a decent covid hairstyle btw.

[ronk]

Good god, ridiculous from POM there.

The elbow drop? Ridiculous. He could be gone now....

Also the Scarlets player doing the knee slide just as Farrell scores, dunno why that's tolerated.

Actually, having watched it again Jake Ball did more or less the same thing to Farrell just as he scored. And the knee slide was filthy

POM was retaliating. It’s clear from one angle that he’s dipping as he approaches the tackle area, then he slows and rises, then drops on Ball. It was pointless and clumsy and it showed a lack of leadership. Nice leadership from Healy to make his case for having a go for his first penalty rather than kicking to the corner. Stander looked tempted to go for the corner.

There are some good blindsides playing in Ireland, have to think POMs place is under serious threat.

[hugonaut]

You can never beat the welsh enough

Some good a lot bad. Inability to work out how to play the ref was telling.
Worked the tries well.
Fineen and gav coming of age
Could be a huge result for the conference

So true.

I don't think the Scarlets looked close to scoring a try over 80 minutes. As I write, I can't even remember them being inside the Munster 5m line once – is that accurate or am I [unintentionally] exaggerating?

Against that, Munster's discipline was atrocious. With Leigh Halfpenny on the other team. From a neutral perspective, I didn't feel that the ref was particularly one-sided; I thought that Munster, especially the pack, were very ill disciplined. There was a mix of inaccuracy, poor decision-making [Jack O'Donoghue pulling down that maul – what was he thinking?] and then obviously O'Mahony's attempts to mete out a bit of physical intimidation to impress Gatland.

But they did exceptionally well to get back to win a game which they were really almost out of with 15 minutes. 17 points in 13 minutes to come back from 14 down is a great win and should give them a massive morale boost. Great way to start the season.

[Oldschool]

Munster scored more points with POM off the pitch then when he was on.

Won a scrum penalty with de Allende at 6. Was the start of their fight back.

Play him at 6 for the rest of the season and give him the captaincy.
One small step for De Allende, one giant step for Munster.

[munster#1]

The form players came on and munster had to play some rugby. Great comeback but the first 60 min were bad. Box kicking from just outside the Scarlets' 22 summed it up for me.


Healy has to start next week. Hes far from the finished product but no harm getting him up to speed now.


Coombes was immense again. Only got 135 min last season which is a mystery to me.

Not sure that next weeks game is the one to throw Healy in.
Munster’s first 2 games of the season are against the last season’s 1st and 3rd place teams from their conference.
Momentum is extremely important here, especially with the prospect of losing a good number of players in the coming weeks.

Hopefully we see a bit of rotation next week. Would be great to see Knox getting a start.

[ronk]

They have a medium term depth issue at 10. JJ is still the guy but he could get injured. They have to give Healy every chance they can before they have to. JJ gets knocks and it’s a perfect chance to follow a formula that has worked so well for Leinster.

Once de Allende goes to SA (assuming travel restrictions don’t drop him) they should use Scannell and/or JJ at 12 to tutor Healy.

[dropkick]

The form players came on and munster had to play some rugby. Great comeback but the first 60 min were bad. Box kicking from just outside the Scarlets' 22 summed it up for me.


Healy has to start next week. Hes far from the finished product but no harm getting him up to speed now.


Coombes was immense again. Only got 135 min last season which is a mystery to me.

Not sure that next weeks game is the one to throw Healy in.
Munster’s first 2 games of the season are against the last season’s 1st and 3rd place teams from their conference.
Momentum is extremely important here, especially with the prospect of losing a good number of players in the coming weeks.

Hopefully we see a bit of rotation next week. Would be great to see Knox getting a start.

He's seems cool and calm and made 2 mistakes early on but it didn't knock his confidence. Plus his confidence should be sky high now with credit in the bank after winning the match.


I'd echo what ronk said. They should be giving Healy as much time on the pitch as possible to get him experience. That's how he'll learn and be ready for the big games. We can't rely on JJ and to be honest, I think we're more likely to win with Healy than JJ even though he is inexperienced.


In a few weeks they should start blooding Crowley or Flannery. We should assume that Carbery isn't coming back any time soon so plan as if he isn't there. When he comes back, it's a big bonus.


The win against Scarlets and Edinburgh losing, there's no excuses for JVG to not rotate the squad.

[munster#1]

The form players came on and munster had to play some rugby. Great comeback but the first 60 min were bad. Box kicking from just outside the Scarlets' 22 summed it up for me.


Healy has to start next week. Hes far from the finished product but no harm getting him up to speed now.


Coombes was immense again. Only got 135 min last season which is a mystery to me.

Not sure that next weeks game is the one to throw Healy in.
Munster’s first 2 games of the season are against the last season’s 1st and 3rd place teams from their conference.
Momentum is extremely important here, especially with the prospect of losing a good number of players in the coming weeks.

Hopefully we see a bit of rotation next week. Would be great to see Knox getting a start.

He's seems cool and calm and made 2 mistakes early on but it didn't knock his confidence. Plus his confidence should be sky high now with credit in the bank after winning the match.


I'd echo what ronk said. They should be giving Healy as much time on the pitch as possible to get him experience. That's how he'll learn and be ready for the big games. We can't rely on JJ and to be honest, I think we're more likely to win with Healy than JJ even though he is inexperienced.


In a few weeks they should start blooding Crowley or Flannery. We should assume that Carbery isn't coming back any time soon so plan as if he isn't there. When he comes back, it's a big bonus.


The win against Scarlets and Edinburgh losing, there's no excuses for JVG to not rotate the squad.

With the top teams in each conference dropping so few points, I think we really should be targeting a win in this game.
Having a half back paring with so little experience individually and as a pair, is a step too far IMO.
If Murray was fit, perhaps we could then look at starting Healy, but not without him.

We are only 2 games in, so there will be plenty of opportunities.

[ronk]

1 game in.

There's a game next week, a week off and then 6 Pro14 games in a row, mostly without internationals. Heineken Cup after.

Munster have 1 senior out half now: JJ. Last season they tried to power through a shortage at 10 and their season was over early. They have loads of scrumhalves and Murray is too protective. Remember when Carbery basically didn't kick the ball out of hand and Murray kicked everything?

[brenno]

You can never beat the welsh enough

Some good a lot bad. Inability to work out how to play the ref was telling.
Worked the tries well.
Fineen and gav coming of age
Could be a huge result for the conference

So true.

I don't think the Scarlets looked close to scoring a try over 80 minutes. As I write, I can't even remember them being inside the Munster 5m line once – is that accurate or am I [unintentionally] exaggerating?

Against that, Munster's discipline was atrocious. With Leigh Halfpenny on the other team. From a neutral perspective, I didn't feel that the ref was particularly one-sided; I thought that Munster, especially the pack, were very ill disciplined. There was a mix of inaccuracy, poor decision-making [Jack O'Donoghue pulling down that maul – what was he thinking?] and then obviously O'Mahony's attempts to mete out a bit of physical intimidation to impress Gatland.

But they did exceptionally well to get back to win a game which they were really almost out of with 15 minutes. 17 points in 13 minutes to come back from 14 down is a great win and should give them a massive morale boost. Great way to start the season.

Fair dues to Munster, 3 tries to 0 says a lot and young Healy looks an outstanding prospect. But God, Scarlets were shamefully bad - they have 4 of the Welsh international back line and they never looked like scoring a try, leaving it to Halfpenny to kick them to what should have been a home win.

Munster have to spreading the ball and when they finally bid DDA, Farrell and Conway looked excellent - but it happened too seldom.

Big question over POM. Whether or not the first yellow card was warranted, the second one certainly was even though the Scarlets guy who slid on Farrell should have joined him. A captain and a team leader has to do better, and he wasn't exactly setting the game alight before he got sent off.

[leinsterforever]

This Healy guy seems to have a lot of presence and composure. Can't ask more of an outhalf than to steer his team to a win away from home with a red card and 10 points down with 10 minutes left.

He strikes the ball very nicely and can kick it a long way, and he seems good at bringing others into the game as well.

[munster#1]

Jesus, the way Healy is being talked up in all the papers and online this week, you’d swear he was a Leinster player.

Would be great if this ends up being his breakthrough season. Munster could really do with him, and with the players coming behind him he needs to impress right away

[deco]

Healy needs to move province to get game time

[The Doc]

Healy needs to move province to get game time

[mildlyinterested]

media are desperate for munster to produce some homegrown talent