Munster Team Talk Thread - Beirne After Reading

At what point does it go from being unlucky to something of concern for strength & conditioning and/or medical teams to look at.

It’s crazy the amount of injuries we have had in the second row these past 14 months. Just always feels like a continual crisis in that position group.

Ahern has been effective at 6 on the tramlines, but I’m not sure is the re-jig with JOD and Coombes working. JOD at 8 isn’t a good enough ball carrier to launch attacks off set pieces and catching 22/goal line dropouts. We’ve really struggled to get go forward ball these past weeks.

To be fair, we were missing all of POM, Beirne and Barron went off after 7 minutes. That's a lot of leadership missing straight off the bat.

Which team? Leinster look increasingly clueless post Jonny and always miss Ryan. Munster fkd without pom. Worrying for Ireland.

i appreciate the link, its paywalled.

is this his second Achilles on the same foot?

Hopefully not. A young fella starting out and having broken into a starting team deserves a run of games to see if he can make the next move up to regular selection and onwards. Fingers crossed for him.

Which is fair, but honestly think the conditions were the more significant factor of the 2.

Add in the handling errors leading to scrums, whereas Munster want a high ball-in-play time and quick rucks, and it definitely suited Leinster's style more. It could easily end up being the lowest number of passes from the half-back pairing we see under Rowntree, however long he stays.

On the bright side, things are unlikely to get a heck of a lot worse this season, certainly as far as injuries are concerned.

If a team don't want to play any rugby, and focus all their efforts on line speed and what annoyances they can get away with with the ref, well those are the perfect conditions where it can work. And still, we were a couple of mistakes by Crowley away from getting at least three scores against them, probably winning the game.

Plenty to be cheerful about. Zebo had a great game, and still has a nice burst of acceleration at his age. Nankivel brought some punch to his carries which I was very happy to see. Edogbo showed a real meanness at times that you need locks to have. Can't believe he's only turned 21 and everything crossed that the injury isn't too serious.

Much focus on Jager in the scrum, and I thought it was telling Leinster left their starting props on for nearly 75 minutes. But I also liked how he carried. Looking like a very useful signing.

A word too for Crowley, who was excellent in the conditions, despite being behind a patch quilt pack that wasn't getting purchase, and beside a 9 who was having an off night and issues with injuries. Two mistakes might be all some people focus on, but is he still only 23? A great night for his development. I hope in particular that he takes learnings from how well he controlled the game from 9 when Casey was in the bin. All bits and pieces to add to the wheelhouse.

I find it impossible to fathom that Mike P isn't working overtime to figure out a way to bring loose forwards into the attacking game more when the weather / conditions / opposition make it hard to pass or kick out wide. Every system leaves gaps, and he'll find them.