Peter O'Mahony rolled back the years in an outstanding display as Munster began their European campaign with victory over Stade Francais and boss Ian Costello hailed the 35-year-old's "brilliant" contribution.
The former Ireland captain played 60 minutes of the 33-7 Champions Cup win at Thomond Park on Saturday evening.
The stats show the flanker made 11 metres off five carries, made 11 tackles and was part of a forward unit that claimed a 100% return at lineout and scrum time.
But, to the naked eye, O’Mahony was more than the sum of his parts, epitomising the famed Munster spirit, constantly involved on both sides of the ball, even kicking well out of hand, securing and disrupting lineouts, and absorbing a vicious high shot to the face that led to Stade’s first red card.
A rare (but most welcome) 'Hackshaw Jim Duggan' reference in our RTÉ Sport rugby commentary. And it's a red card for Pierre-Henri Azagoh.#RTErugby
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) December 7, 2024
📺Watch Munster v Stade Francais LIVE on RTÉ2 pic.twitter.com/6bLOXeCMjG
And when he went in to protect scrum-half Craig Casey after the scrum-half was flipped over by lock Baptiste Pesenti , who received the visitors’ second red card, O’Mahony emerged with a bloodied face. His work done.
It was the Cork Con man’s third outing of the season for Munster, who have now recorded back-to-back wins after losing four of their opening six URC games.
"Peter is and always has been a talisman for the club," said interim head coach Costello.
"He was brilliant, on and off the pitch, this week.
"Peter talked during the week about how we make people feel, defensively.
"I think if you were wearing a red shirt tonight, you made 14 others feel really, really good about that performance.
"Look, we’re so fortunate. Barronsy [Diarmuid Barron], Tadhg [Beirne], Peter, Jack [Crowley] and many others, we’ve got a really strong leadership group.
"We talked a couple of weeks ago about a shared ownership approach and it’s really important that across players, staff and coaches that we spread the load and everyone is brought on and everybody has pulled together to put us in a really good position for his block."
O’Mahony was no doubt the warrior chief, and Thaakir Abrahams picked up the player of the match award but full-back Shane Daly, on his 100th appearance, was another stand-out performer and scored a superb individual try in the first half.
A quite brilliant (double) chip and chase from Shane Daly has Munster firmly in control at Thomond Park. Once again, Crowley obliges with the extras.
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) December 7, 2024
30min: Munster 14-0 Stade Francais
📺Watch Munster v Stade Francais LIVE on RTÉ2 pic.twitter.com/06taflwIeH
"It was a big week for Shane," added Costello.
"He's such an important player and person in our squad and you know, he was the [URC] 'Iron Man', I think, last year in terms of the minutes played and he's been a bit frustrated at the start of this season.
"He's had a few injuries but he epitomises everything good about this club. He's such a good professional.
"He's such a good person and he makes everyone around him better and I’m delighted that we could acknowledge that with a quality performance and a win."
Munster face another Top14 side on Friday with their trip to Castres, beaten 38-8 by Northampton, a repeat of their 2022 meeting, which the visitors won 16-13, thanks to a late Gavin Coombes try.
Captain Diarmuid Barron recalled his memories of the game at Stade Pierre Fabre.
"I think half the pitch was frozen over," said the 26-year-old hooker.
"My memories of it are walking out onto the pitch, into the dugout, seeing Niall [Scannell] go down injured after I’d say about five minutes.
"He continued on for another 10 or 15 and I was on after 20 minutes.
"That was a battle. It was one of my first Champions Cup games and it was such an introduction to what the south of France is all about, not weather-wise now but physicality.
"Like tonight, athletes that are well capable of turning you in the blink of an eye so we’ve got to be all over our own stuff this week because if we’re not we’ll be made pay."
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