Grahamunster - Graham Rowntree's Munster 2022/2023

[cormac]

Munster making easy metres off first phase. Sharks rush defence isn't very good.

[cormac]

Stadium has a water slide and bouncy castle for the little people. Craig Casey will be straight over to them once he's substituted.

[johng]

Stadium has a water slide and bouncy castle for the little people. Craig Casey will be straight over to them once he's substituted.

[riocard911]

Munster doing okay in the first half with it at 17-14 at half time. Crowley is playing well, but on a couple of occasions Munster have stolen possession and had an obvious overlap, but instead of getting the ball to the outside one or other forward has taken the ball into back heavy traffic and the chance has been lost. Could go either way. Good luck to Archer, who had to come on after 20 mins for Salanoa, as it's hot and humid out there and he'll be running on fumes towards the end of the game.

[wixfjord]

Sharks have no lineout, no real structure to their play and are relying on bulk and rucking power to force Munster into errors.

Casey has been really mixed. Murray a far better option for this game and will be on in next 10.

Munster not controlling the ball at all with messy rucks and lots of knock ons/passes going to ground. That'll be the key area of focus at HT.

Munster should win it from here if they can limit Sharks easy access to their 22.

[wixfjord]

Munster should win it from here if they can limit Sharks easy access to their 22.

And they start the half giving away three pens in a row to give easy access to their 22!

[Dave Cahill]

Well that was one of the maddest decisions in modern rugby!

[Dave Cahill]

Sin é

[Schumi]

This could get ugly if Munster don't shore up their defence quickly.

[wixfjord]

Game over. Munster really poor since HT.

Lack of forward depth on bench and Casey an issue as predicted pre game.

[cormac]

Munster out on their feet

[wixfjord]

Oh this could get very ugly now with 23 mins left!

[OTT]

Carbery has been shocking.

[Hoofhearted]

Munster shipping 50 points in Europe is 15 years in the making.

A poorly run organisation from top to bottom that is reaping what they have sewn.

[LeinsterLeader]

Munster's curve has definitely been upwards since the start of the season but since they've started to expand their attacking game they've reminded me of Newcastle under Kevin Keegan (i.e. you score 4 tries we'll score 5). The problem with that is it's not sustainable, because for all the excitement of your attacking game, at the heart of it is simply poor defence. You will win a lot of high scoring games but Eventually it'll bite you in the ass (as Newcastle found out).

[wixfjord]

Two enormous games coming up in SA to try even secure HEC status.

But even with that, Munster's pool seeding for next year will make it very tough.

[Hoofhearted]

Two enormous games coming up in SA to try even secure HEC status.

But even with that, Munster's pool seeding for next year will make it very tough.

Fingers crossed they qualify. If they don't qualify the Brave and the Faithful could potentially demand change down there. Let them wallow.

Munster are Ospreys lite. Long may it stay that way.

[hugonaut]

Weird refereeing performance from Wayne Barnes - extremely loose.

Sort of interesting to see so many things let go that normally get pulled up. The game is a lot more chaotic. For example, he let a Sharks scrum go almost 180º [i.e. their front row ended up facing their own goal-line] and would have let the game play on if their scrum-half had not knocked on the ball trying to pick it up.

He only penalised the Sharks three times in the entire game. Three times in a half would be a low penalty count, three times in a full game is very odd. I think I have seen one penalty count that low before in a high level game, and it was a Welsh game at home against England [i.e. very noisy crowd].

[MylesNaGapoleen]

a major concern for munster is that the sharks are not that good. their defense is awful. leaky as fck. And they absolutely butchered 2 certain tries, when the wrong pass was chosen...one had 3 sharks out to his left with no cover, but the attacker decided to try an harlem globetrotters pass over cover to reach another sharks player supporting. ball went to ground and the try was gone.

A few munster lads may have put their seats on the plane to france on hold after that.

[CiaranIrl]

Coombes & Hodnett were dire. It's like they had some notion that getting involved in breakdowns was none of their business. I have no idea where they learned their backrow trade, but it was amateur from them both.