After a somewhat surprising, yet utterly dominant victory at home against Glasgow, Benetton have forced a head-to-head showdown with Munster for a place in the play-offs of the BKT United Rugby Championship.
Benetton sit in seventh spot level on points with eighth place Munster and ninth place Cardiff. Edinburgh sit in 10th and can still qualify for the play-offs after their victory at Connacht last weekend.
There are some crucial clashes this weekend. Cardiff travel to Stormers, Sharks host Scarlets and while Ulster's season is over, they can still have an impact on the play-off spots if they stop Edinburgh from winning in Scotland.
The most competitive game will undoubtedly be in Virgin Media Park, as Munster host Benetton. It’s been quite some time since the Cork venue has hosted a Munster match with this level of jeopardy. The synthetic pitch and tighter ground will add to the atmosphere in what should be a thrilling game.
It will be another one of those final moments, as Peter O’ Mahony, Conor Murray and Stephen Archer prepare for their last game in Virgin Media Park, following on from their last game in Thomond Park last weekend.
While there’s a lot of emotion surrounding their contribution, there’s too much on the line for Munster to get carried away with the nostalgia. Yet, they can harness it once more to create a bounce within the squad.
Munster live for these games where everything is on the line. They have too much quality to suggest that this might actually be the last outing for this trio. We know these players won’t play another home game, so that much is certain.
However, depending on which Munster side we see this weekend, they’re still good enough to go on a play-off run if they can see off the challenge of Benetton. They’ve managed it before and may well do it again, although their current form won’t provide the same expectation.
Benetton are a good side, capable of following through on this upset. We saw what they did to Glasgow last week.
You can argue that Glasgow were too comfortable and didn’t reach the same emotional pitch that Munster will this weekend, but you can’t argue Glasgow’s quality and Benetton still raced into a 33-0 lead, making the Scots look very ordinary along the way.
Benetton have benefitted massively from the backing of the Italian Rugby Federation. They’re littered with Italian internationals and many of the Italian-qualified signings such as Louis Lynagh, Paul Odogwu and Matt Gallagher are playing with Benetton.
The squad is also bolstered with players like Jacob Umaga, Rhyno Smith and Malakai Fekitoa. They have been building much more depth.
When you look at their centres, Fekitoa is a 24 times capped All Black and has 11 caps for Tonga in his second international stint. He probably won’t start ahead of the Italian centre partnership, Tommaso Menoncello and Ignacio Brex.
There’s a lot of pace and power in their back line. Benetton’s attacking stats won’t turn too many heads, but when they get it right they can be a very dangerous team, evidenced by their five-try haul against Glasgow last week.
Where stats will back up their performances, is the consistency in their setpiece. They have a pretty good lineout, with an 88% return, and their scrum is a primary weapon for them with 96% success rate, the best in the competition.
Interestingly, both of these sides beat La Rochelle in their Champions Cup seasons before being knocked out. They’re both capable of stepping up on any given day. Their league positions are more reflective of their consistency.
Munster have struggled massively in the lineout. The fact that they’re still scoring a lot of tries is a testament to their unstructured play and offloading game.
Tom Farrell has been a central figure in whatever Munster are doing well. He’s top of the offloading charts and you’ll see his name sprinkled throughout the higher end of the attacking stats.
Whether it’s line breaks, tries or metres made, Farrell is quietly going about his business for Munster and stepping up with big moments throughout their campaign.
There’s a real threat that Munster might not make the Champions Cup or the play-offs this year. For any Munster person, that’s inconceivable. From Irish rugby’s perspective, those that put the national team before their province will be desperate for Munster to get the all-important victory in Cork.
Leinster are the team guaranteed a favourable play-off run, while Connacht and Ulster both took themselves out of contention last weekend. Their poor seasons have been summed up by crashing out of play-off contention and playing second fiddle in European action next year.
Champions Cup rugby features heavily in Munster’s DNA. Losing this weekend doesn’t seem to be an option for them, but history and tradition has to change at some stage.
If Ian Costello's side want to avoid writing the wrong type of history, they need to put some setpiece and defensive frailties behind them.
In fairness to Denis Leamy on the defensive side, if you throw away as much ball as Munster do in the lineout then you’re going to defend for long periods of time and you’ll end up making poorer decisions in a scramble defence.
Munster must avoid giving Benetton that foothold in the game next Friday night. Not only could they put the nervousness surrounding Champions Cup qualification behind them, Munster still have a squad that can challenge anyone in the top half of the play-off positions.
They might be up against it, but that’s where Munster are at their scintillating best.
A run at the play-offs and Champions Cup qualification wouldn’t just put Munster back into a more dominant position, it would spin a more positive light on some of the negative outlook on Irish rugby at present.
Watch Leinster v Glasgow in the URC on Saturday from 7pm on the RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player. Follow a live blog on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app and listen to Saturday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1
