Munster Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread.

The thing that is annoying about POC carrying, is he always seems to pop up in the backline at a standing start when you really don't want him there, and he kills the speed of the move. He is good for making the hard yards and recycling, he just needs to carry in the right areas.

Amazotheamazing wrote: »

I'm sure POC would love to carry the ball for 50m's but everyone knows he ones of the few carriers Munster have left so they target him. POC still has poor hands, relatively, for such an important carrier.

I love the man, but POC was never a renowned ball carrier in my eyes...

Podge_irl wrote: »

If he has been a bit quicker he could have been truly excellent. Shame really, though still did very well.

I always thought Kelly would have made a good 13 but I only saw him play there once. Dowling, meh, people seem to have rosier memories of him then me.

Podge_irl wrote: »

I think Dowling was effective in the style of game Munster were playing, but I would never have considered him an "intelligent" player like Kelly. He simply had good defence and was a decent runner with ball in hand.

i.e. we didn't use wingers as anything other then an extra flanker

Clegg wrote: »

Penney has a truckload of work to do when he takes over. I've never seen Munster lack so much grunt up forward. Only POM will take any credit from the game this evening. The set piece has been appalling and the back play has been clueless. It's clear to see that DOC offers absolutely nothing positive anymore.

POC, Leamy, Wallace and Coughlan all injured. That's a massive absence of grunt tonight. Varley contributes in this regard too and he's out as well.

I think the McGahan criticism is unwarranted.


He's not been our best coach ever but that performance is not reflective of his tenure. Players get older, he had a lot of rebuilding too, now we need a new face to bring us on further.

I'm just sad that players like Micko had to end on that note.

I can't understand why we persist with sending individual runners into heavy traffic.

One of 2 things happen:
1. You get turned over
2. You don't take the contact on your own terms, you can't present the ball properly, and your 9 has rubbish ball to work with.

Any half decent professional outfit can counter that. Wyn-Jones, Jones, Evans, Tipuric & Bearman destroyed it.

Basic stuff. I know we were missing quality players, but we could have at least gone about the game in the right way.

CatFromHue wrote: »

Did anyone heat The Last Word this evening?

Neil Francis was saying that Penny wants to take a few of the players and back room staff from Canterbury with him to Munster.

Well he can't really bring a few of the players. We can only sign 1 more project player and that's it.

Deleted User wrote: »

When did he start? Day one? Day two? It took years for it to happen. I was ranting and raving about it back in 2010!

If he hadn't started doing something back in 2010, players wouldn't be ready to come through this year. You can't just make a HC-standard player out of nothing. And a lot more players have come through this season and last season than had during the Kidney era.

CIARAN_BOYLE wrote: »

Maybe he knows who has Irish grandparents

Well hopefully he can find a few

Couple of Nacewa/Warwick-like players who just happen to have Irish grandparents would be nice.

Monty Burnz wrote: »

Indeed. Kidney is the real villain in the decline of Munster.

To be honest, proper underage structures and academy development officers and stuff should be in place regardless of who the coach is. Obviously he can't be forced to play the players but the whole youth structure got left behind while the other provinces were making huge strides.

Clegg wrote: »

Keatley looked half decent this evening. If he develops well under Penney than maybe ROG won't be picked as often.

Yeah I was impressed by him. Considering there must have been a certain amount of pressure on him, he did fairly well. And even when things were going badly, he looked willing to try stuff, which is good.

One thing I will say in criticism of McGahan is that Keatley really should have started one HC game this year at out-half. Any maybe another at 12 outside ROG, where he could learn from him.