Munster v Edinburgh, 7 September

by **George Carlin** Mon 02 Sep 2013, 11:21 am

First topic message reminder :

Welcome to the new season, Munster and Edinburgh fans.

Here we go, then:

Saturday 7th September 2013
Kick off: 19:15
Musgrave Park, Cork
Live on TG4/BBC Heedrumhodrum

Referee: Marius Mitrea (FIR, 18th competition game)
Assistant Referees: S Gallagher, P Haycock (both IRFU)
Citing Commissioner: Eugene Ryan (IRFU)
TMO: Jude Quinn (IRFU)

A. Form - Head to head:

Munster v Edinburgh

25 Played 25
20 Wins 5
5 Losses 20
0 Draws 0
55 Tries 36
35 Conversions 26
66 Penalties 44
1 Drop Goals 3
546 Points 373
25 Avg. Age 25

B. Last season:

Saturday 1 September 2012, 20:00, Murrayfield
Edinburgh Rugby 18 - 23 Munster Rugby

Saturday 9 February 2013, 19:45, Musgrave Park
Munster Rugby 30 - 3 Edinburgh Rugby

C. Teams:

1. Munster guinness

15 Denis Hurley
14 Ronan O'Mahony
13 Casey Laulala
12 Ivan Dineen
11 Johne Murphy
10 Ian Keatley
9 Duncan Williams

1 James Cronin
2 Mike Sherry
3 Stephen Archer
4 Dave Foley
5 Donncha O’Callaghan
6 Dave O'Callaghan
7 Sean Dougall
8 James Coughlan (C)

Replacements:
Damien Varley,
Dave Kilcoyne,
John Ryan,
Billy Holland,
Tommy O’Donnell,
Cathal Sheridan,
JJ Hanrahan,
Cian Bohane.

2. Edinburgh cuppa

15 Greig Tonks
14 Dougie Fife
13 Nick De Luca
12 Ben Atiga
11 Lee Jones
10 Piers Francis
9 Sean Kennedy

1 Alasdair Dickinson
2 Ross Ford
3 WP Nel
4 Grant Gilchrist
5 Izak van der Westhuizen
6 Sean Cox (c)
7 Roddy Grant
8 David Denton

Substitutes:
16 Aleki Lutui,
17 Geoff Cross,
18 Lewis Niven,
19 Ollie Atkins,
20 Hamish Watson,
21 Sam Hidalgo-Clyne,
22 Harry Leonard,
23 Jack Cuthbert

by funnyExiledScot Sun 08 Sep 2013, 9:29 pm

Restarts and winning key lineout ball still a shambles, and munster seemed able o make 20 metres by simply shipping the ball down the line. Tackling was soft, and we kept allowing munster to offload in the tackle. We needed to be quicker and more physical in defence.

Liked NDL's try though, great individual score, and Lee Jones managed to contribute positively at last, scoring when he still had a bit to do.

Agree with you RDW, Dragons at home is must win.

by Sin é Sun 08 Sep 2013, 10:21 pm

KiaRose wrote: JJ's try struck me as being a pure inside centre's try, the way he came flying through onto the ball. Is he an IC rather than a fly-half? We saw him at 10 in the JWC mainly because Ruddock had no-one else to put there, but JJ was IC before that. However without him, Munster are a bit light on 10s.

JJ was fly-half for school (Rockwell) and club (UL Bohs). Sheridan was his halfback partner at UL Bohs. Jackson may have been preferred initially at flyhalf, but bearing in mind what happened in SA, it looks like Ruddock got that selection wrong. Cathal Marsh (Leinster) was also in the same U20s age group, so he wasn't the only option.

Very impressed with the Munster off-loading game - they all looked very comfortable doing it. The difference this year is that the support is now very good at being in the right place for the offload.

And what about Ronan O'Mahony's back flick! Seems he played a lot of soccer growing up and Zebo probably has them all practising it now!

by Rory_Gallagher Sun 08 Sep 2013, 10:23 pm

I was fairly sure JJ was primarily a 10 as well - his kicking game is incredible also, would be wasted at 12 to be honest.

by ME-109 Sun 08 Sep 2013, 10:37 pm

JJ had been very impressive in preseason and his time yesterday and OH is his position. Agree with Thomond (don't do that often) regarding our game but at least this year we are winning games we could have lost and the accuracy was a lot better. Not sure who said Sheridan was better than Williams when he came on but we lost a lot of direction when he did come on.

As for Coughlans try it was lucky the way the ball flicked up but the fact that there was no one in the vicinity even if O'Mahoney totally missed it Coughlan would have scored anyhow.

by bsando Mon 09 Sep 2013, 12:31 am

RDW_Scotland wrote:Tell you what, if Edinburgh just stopped giving teams 3 try head starts we'd stand a chance in a lot of games!

Disappointing start really but there are some positives to take away. 5 tries against is grim reading but 34-23 is a relatively respectable scoreline compared to what it could have been. Munster thouroughly deseverd their BP win but didn't half ride their luck along the way - that try where it bobbled off the guys feet and straight in the number 8's hands was a freak, one of the tries came from a fairly squint looking lineout and one of the tries had at least 2 suspect looking passes in the buildup! We needed some luck and didn't get it, but cannot dispute the result.

Positives

We scored 2 good tries - both had good build up play as a team and some individual skill. There are some parts of the 'Edinburgh way' worth maintaining and glad to see we can still score.

Scrum stood up very well - when was the last time we left Munster with more scrum penalties than they got??

WP Nel had a strong game - solid in the tight and that chase back at the end shows his fitness

Sam Metrosexual-Hidalgo-Clyne looked lively when he came on - the scrum half factory is alive and well in Scotland still

Ford and Denton carried well

Niven stood up well on the loose head - I feared the worst when he came on but he did very well

Negatives

Restarts, restarts, restarts - 3 times we got points on the board and straight away messed up the re-start, directly leading to tries or penalty goals against us. Why are we so bad at these??

Open field defence was shocking - Omar has got his work cut out to get us some shape very quickly

We still have the massive inconsistencies that dog our game. We do some really good stuff straight away mess it up with some terrible play. Example - work hard to get a penalty just in their half near the end, kick it to touch, and mess up the lineout!

Francis had a poor game. I don't think it is a coincidence that when he's having to be goal kicker the rest of his game deteriorates. Leonard looked composed when he came on but we really can't chop and change our 10 like last year - we need to stick with one. Maybe it has to be Leonard.

Sean Kennedy had a poor game. His decision making was slow and his box kicks were poor. His terrible pass directly led to a try when we had just got ourselves back in the game

Atiga clearly wasn't fit - why was he played??

Cuthbert - - all that needs to be said

Pretty damn spot on. But I thought Cuthbert looked okay when he came on, but he did seem slow. He has skills though and good awareness, he'll come in handy for Edinburgh during internationals. Can't believe Denton spilt a ball when going into contact, looked pretty weak as well. A player of his calibre should not be spilling the ball so easily and his solo run into isolation was crap as well.

To me the biggest positive was the scrum. A decent scrum from Edinburgh followed by a good lineout lead to the first try by NDL. Just goes to show how getting the basics right really makes a difference.

I think Edinburgh just need to build on the positives and look to cut out the silly errors vs the Dragons. They were their own worst enemy against Munster at times. But sadly I think there are just too many error prone players in the squad at the moment, notably at 9/10. Once Laidlaw returns it may improve slightly but Kennedy and Francis had really poor games as you say, both were responsible for two soft try's.

Big ups to the classy heel flick to try from Munster by the way, that was way more impressive than Zebo's chip in 6N.

by funnyExiledScot Mon 09 Sep 2013, 12:33 pm

There were a couple of careless moments from Denton but it was still an improvement on last season.

I was disappointed with Gilchrist again. Still doesn't make enough impact for me, and VDW was nothing special. When you compare to the performances of Gray and Swinson for Glasgow, Edinburgh really does need to extract more power and energy from its so-called "boiler room". A few more weekends like that and Gilchrist will be out of the Scotland reckoning. He is treading water for me. Not a bad performance by any means, but young Jonny Gray was better, and Swinson is streets ahead.

Nel, Ford and Niven worked well though, and when we had both Grant and Watson working together we were better than with Cox at 6. That blindside jersey is going to be a problem for us this season.

by **RDW** Mon 09 Sep 2013, 12:37 pm

To be fair to VDV he was carrying an ankle injury – Hislop said in the commentary that he had his ankle strapped and he went off on 45 minutes, suggesting he was struggling. We’ve got hunners of 2nd rows – not sure why he was played if he was carrying an injury.

Agreed on the 6 jersey – why did he leave Basalaia on the bench and bring on another 7? We both rate him highly – this suggests the coaches don’t.

by funnyExiledScot Mon 09 Sep 2013, 2:44 pm

I agree, with Atkins, Parker, MacAlpine and the twins, why play an injured lock? Same issue with Atiga. If players are not fit they shouldn't play.

I don't understand the treatment of Basilia at all. However, whilst I had zero respect for Bradley's judgment, I have a little more respect for Solomons and Scott (at present...). If they don't think he's up to it, then I'll have to accept that.

Very pleased for Hamish Watson, and he and Grant actually played quite well together. We were certainly more competitive in the second half.

Looking forward to Friday!

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