In the words of Johann Van Graan, Munster were "one moment short of a victory." A true statement but which moment would he focus on most?
Three missed lineouts while 10-0 up at home, a ball coming back off the post or a potentially crooked throw leading up to a well-run Leinster try?
Yet though it feels more like Munster were a positive moment shy of the victory, they didn't score for 68 minutes.
Tadhg Beirne was phenomenal and probably had two of the standout moments of the game in disrupting two of only a handful of Leinster visits to the Munster 22. Mike Haley was the standout player in the air, especially when compared to Larmour’s troubles and Conor Murray played his best game in a Munster jersey in quite a while.
Munster never landed their final shot. They had Leinster on the ropes for large periods of that game but they allowed them to stay within touching distance in a game where the champions were far from their best. The game was there for Munster to take and they had the opportunities to do so, they just didn't do it.
Munster’s defence was ferocious and stifled a lot of Leinster’s creativity. They made Leinster look very average with the ball in hand besides a few intricate running lines from Robbie Henshaw in tight spaces. By the end of the game, Leinster had racked up a couple of half-breaks, including a nice one from Luke McGrath at the maul but they weren’t at their free-flowing and exhilarating best, which is a testament to both the weather before kick-off and Munster’s work ethic in defence.
That’s a massive improvement from Van Graan and his team. Leinster usually rack up try bonus points on the way to victory and even did so when losing to Connacht. It shows how much Munster’s defence can pressure the opposition.
Both defences were narrow, with a lot of intent to cross the gain line even before tackles were made, which is really how most modern defences are lining up. We saw last year how Wales tried to venture away from this style and quickly returned to it after some poor results on the drift. It’s a very hard style of defence to play into.
As a result, we saw kick-passes to the wings, one from JJ Hanrahan which bounced up for Peter O'Mahony and another from Henshaw which went straight into touch from Leinster’s first set-piece play, almost 10 minutes into the game.
Munster looked to spread the play a bit wider from hand too, which worked nicely in the first half. However, in the second half they wanted to grind their way to the Leinster line. The more the clock ticked on, the more it felt like Munster tightened up.
Apart from one rumble early in the first half which led to a missed penalty, it took Munster most of the half to return to some of the passes that caused Leinster trouble in the first half. By that stage, they had to chase the game and made errors.
Apart from some of the obvious top performances from the likes of Henshaw and Murray, including the not so obvious 29 tackles and 16 carries from James Ryan, we didn’t learn a massive amount from the game.
Munster have definitely taken another step towards improvement and overcoming Leinster, but this should have been the one. I mentioned last week that if ever there was a time to beat Leinster, this was it. And it should have been a victory.
It’s going to be a tough one to move on from, while at the same time it’s not really going to damage Munster’s position in Conference B. They’re still odds-on to top their group, however, it now means that Leinster are also favourites to top their pool, something that Munster could have affected had they won.
"If he (Larmour) doesn't sort out his aerial ability, it will become harder to start him at international level"
From a Leinster point of view, they still gave up a lot of territory, possession and momentum by not controlling the ball in the air. Larmour was tested five or six times, as was McGrath. All of Munster’s progress came down their left side on Larmour’s wing. Funnily enough, he was the one with the last say in the game but if he doesn’t sort out his aerial ability, it will become harder to start him at international level.
We saw this last year too. Munster pushed Leinster close because they had an aerial tactic that gave them possession and territory to have a crack at winning but they fell just short. The two teams met again and Leinster put a sticking plaster over the problem, in the form of better escorting from the front line to block the direct run at Larmour so Munster couldn’t challenge him in the air.
Can Munster expect to get so much return from the same tactic next time out? Leinster will look back at this game and find a tactic to disrupt this upper hand that Munster are repeatedly using.
Both lineouts were poor and malfunctioned as both teams were about to take a strong foothold in the game, particularly Munster. They did well at the end of the first half to shorten the lineout after one of Beirne’s memorable moments in the ruck but it was too late from an attacking perspective.
They lost their edge on Leinster having gone 10-0 up and they allowed them back into the game instead of stretching their lead with the opportunities that they had. Frustratingly for Van Graan and his team, the opportunities were there and they gave them away. It wasn’t a case of not creating chances. You couldn’t say they were beaten by the better team on the night.
Leinster found a way in a really tight game that they didn’t look like winning for large parts. That’s what the top teams do but Leinster haven’t been at their best. It can only go two ways. They will sort out some of their issues, mainly some lineout errors and aerial mistakes and get back to their free flowing and dominant ways, or their luck will start to run out if they keep offering teams opportunities to beat them like Connacht did. This should have been two losses to Irish provinces in the space of a few games.
At the same time, credit has to go to Leinster for travelling to Thomond Park, playing poorly and pulling it out of the bag to keep Munster at arm’s length yet again. It’s a sweet victory for Leinster and a hard pill to swallow for the men in red.
