Munster Team Talk Thread - New season title pending....

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119663985#Comment_119663985

Looks to me as though he returned to Ireland mainly to avail of the Sportsperson's tax relief, rather than to play his heart out for Munster.

boetstark

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119664195#Comment_119664195

He seems to find it amusing to lose to the dragons. He was laughing after a knock on in final 5 minutes.

ionadnapokot

Zebo is the epitome of what has gone wrong over the last 5 years

bad recruitment

bad management

And bad coaching

Rowntree and Predergast have a difficult job on their hands this season. Getting rid, Getting in and getting ready for more of the same for RWC season.

Going to take at least 2 seasons before Munster can get out of this mess.

theVersatile

We get it lads - ye don't like Zebo.

aloooof

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119663952#Comment_119663952

That's simply not true tho, FFF. For example, in his last season before moving to Racing, he played all but 8 minutes in the 2 Test vs NZ, and all but 6 minutes in the 6 Nations, starting all those games.

ionadnapokot

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119664883#Comment_119664883

I liked Zebo 2012 Not Zebo 2022. Which is more to my point on the bad recruiting etc.

Burkie1203

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119664883#Comment_119664883

have you actually seen him?

pro athlete with access to doctors, nutritionist, physios, S&C coaching etc on a daily basis has come back at the start of the season in awful condition. Like what was he doing in pre season? A tour of every take away in the province?

I'm 45, full time job, kids. In April I changed up my diet etc as I am looking to give Dublin Marathon a proper go. I've gone from 87kg to 77kg in late July and have maintained that. If I can do that, why does a pro athlete with all that access to professional guidance turn up after a full pre season look in such bad shape?

I cannot recall any other outside back at any province ever turning up at the start of the season in such bad shape.

Former Former Former

As fleshy as Zebo is, the fault for that try lies with the two lads who missed a simple tackle, think it was Fekitoa and POM, and Haley should have done better too. Even Zebo at his peak wasn't catching Dyer once he got into open country.

Burkie1203

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119665220#Comment_119665220

POM was on one leg at that stage. Were there no more subs left?

Cookiemunster

The Zebo bashing from usual suspect non Munster fans is pathetic. Zebo is very very far down the list of reasons that Munster lost yesterday. But hey lets pile on with the same overweight shite that we've been spouting for years.

aloooof

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119663430#Comment_119663430

It's his 2nd game. Give him a chance, like.

ionadnapokot

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119665207#Comment_119665207

Fair play marathon and all. Sincerely

None of us know what’s going on in his life mentally or physically.

What we do know is that he got a new 2 year contract in Jan (by ‘head coach’ JvG and/or more than likely Rowntree) and was selected to play again at the weekend. These are the maddening things going on at Munster.

Lost Ormond

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119664195#Comment_119664195

He didnt need to return to Ireland to avail of that and ridiculously unfair to claim anything like that anyway

aloooof

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119665816#Comment_119665816

Plus he took a massive paycut to come back to play for Munster, by all accounts.

Interested Observer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119665874#Comment_119665874

Don't think staying at Racing was an option for him, his contract expired and not sure he was offered an renewal.

aloooof

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119665897#Comment_119665897

No, but I think it’s pretty reasonable he could have had higher offers from elsewhere.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119664883#Comment_119664883

Or perhaps it's more that we don't like to see anyone taking a salary from Munster Rugby under false pretences.

phog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119664195#Comment_119664195

If you really think this is true then you haven't a bulls clue what your talking about.

Lost Ormond

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119666156#Comment_119666156

false pretences? Stop making things up.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119665816#Comment_119665816

It's an opinion. And whether you agree with it or not doesn't particularly concern me.

phog

I didn't see the match but that result puts Munster in a difficult position already and we're only 2 games into the season.

I said it before and I'll say it again, this mini tour to SA will cost us, we needed our squad together to bed into the new coaching set-up but we're drip feeding players on and out of pre-season/early season and it's showing. The tour couldn't have come at a worse time for Munster.

Wow! The "circle the wagons lads" brigade are out early this morning! 🤣

Quin_Dub

It's the lack of a discernible game-plan that is really concerning.

If it was a case of the last pass going astray or a player being out of position for what was being tried or whatever you could hope that it would come right after a bit more time but having watched all 4 games played by Munster so far this season (including the warm ups) there is no obvious evidence of a specific game-plan under development.

That lack of game plan along with a real lack of "bite" in the performances is very worrying for Munster.

Given the fixture list in the coming weeks , absent an almost immediate significant improvement across the board Munsters hopes of getting to play-off stage Rugby this season could be almost out of sight before the November International window.

awec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119666186#Comment_119666186

Apparently the go-ahead for the international players to play at the weekend was only given this week, which if true would have made preparation even more difficult.

Brief_Lives

Has this been posted??

GRAHAM ROWNTREE SLAMMED the performance of his Munster side as they suffered the ignominy of becoming the first side the Dragons have beaten at home for 17 months.

This 23-17 defeat was a painful one to take for Rowntree whose side were outmuscled by a Dragons outfit who were a lot more physical and accurate than the Irish province. Munster have lost their opening two United Rugby Championship fixtures, after they got beaten by Cardiff last weekend, and Rowntree admits the level of their performance was unacceptable.

“I’m not happy,” said the Munster head coach.

I told the lads I’m not happy with our discipline, inaccuracy, the way we were forcing things and our error count. I can’t have this.

“I was surprised about our inaccuracy particularly going into their 22′, and our ability to keep the ball in that key area.

“That really shocked me, I’ll be honest with you. Whoever you play, you’re going to have a challenge — particularly when you play away from home, regardless of what’s happened in the Dragons camp this week.

“I expected better in terms of the stuff we can do better. It was just so poor.

“We had eight turnovers in the first half and were ill-disciplined. We lost lineouts, knocked on and we never got a foothold in the game.

“We had to address that and be patient. Just before half-time we sorted that out but in the second half we fell away in all those areas of the game, especially going into their 22′.

“We were just sloppy.”

Munster were punished by the boot of their former out-half JJ Hanrahan who kicked 18 points and controlled the game extremely well. He put the Dragons into an early 15-3 lead before two quick Munster tries out of nowhere from Stephen Archer, and Ben Healy gave the visitors a 17-15 lead at the interval.

But they were harassed into making several errors in the second-half while they were blown away at the breakdown. Dragons wing Rio Dyer scored a sensational long-range try to win the game, with Jack O’Donoghue also sent to the sin bin late on.

Rowntree was at a loss to explain Munster’s lack of energy and inability to do the basics right, but he made it very clear they must bounce back against Zebre in Cork next week.

“The next game is always must-win and we have to be better against Zebre,” said Rowntree.

We have a very large and competitive squad. We had British Lions on the field but whoever has got the shirt, we just expected more accuracy.

“We can’t afford another performance like this.”

Red Silurian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119665377#Comment_119665377

Feels weird to be reading one of your comments and actually agreeing with what you say

I don't really like to see coaches coming out and slamming their players like this publicly. Andy Friend has done it multiple times with Connacht as well.

If one or two players underperform then that's on those players; when virtually the entire team underperform that's on the coach.

Brief_Lives

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119666344#Comment_119666344

see 3 posts above..

Quin_Dub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119666344#Comment_119666344

I'd agree - By all means be accountable and accept that a performance wasn't good enough , but there has to be more of a collective acceptance of responsibilities.

Like you say , that performance was a structural team failure and not one caused by a couple of players having a bad day - Coaches have to own that.

Either it's the wrong plan or they are doing a bad job of coaching the plan.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119666353#Comment_119666353

Yeah, that's what I was specifically referencing...