Fourth in the pool with six points while Castres sit in last place with five, Munster once again take to Thomond Park looking to earn a lifeline into the knockout phase of the Champions Cup.
It has ever been thus. Engineering a must-win game in the last round of pool matches has become part of Munster DNA, and they find themselves in that situation again following their narrow defeat in Toulon on Sunday.
“We have to win it,” said Munster captain Tadhg Beirne. “The reality is we probably need a bonus point as well to put ourselves into contention going forward. So it’s going to be a huge game.
“It’s a huge week for us, and we’re going to have to really step up and the performance out there is going to have to [improve] to make sure we get over the line.”
READ MORE
Rory Best on how Ulster have turned things around
The probability is that if Munster beat Castres on Saturday (kick-off 5.30pm), they will be on the road again in the knockout phases.
Toulon – despite their tradition of having the players file into the ground through a 50-metre tunnel of fans – was a friendly atmosphere, loud but not as intimidating as usual.
Even Beirne, now a veteran of European campaigns, was the first to acknowledge that Munster rarely make it easy for themselves.
“There have been some tight games. That [Toulon] was a very tight game, we’ll be disappointed we didn’t win it,” he said.
“If we had have won it, we would have been in a much better position. But we don’t make it easy for ourselves. But when our backs are against the wall you often see some of the best performances from this group.
“That’s just part of Munster. Many Munster teams in the past, when their backs are against the wall, have turned up and performed. It’ll be no different next week.
“We need to win badly. We need a bonus point in reality, so we’re going to have to step up a huge amount.”
Despite Castres sitting bottom of Pool 2, they remain just a point off Munster and Gloucester. In that respect, the losing bonus point Munster earned at Stade Felix Mayol could be vital in the final placings.
Castres are 10th in the Top 14 table with seven wins from 14 games. There is no sense from Munster that, despite the energy they will get from playing in Limerick, it will be anything but a challenging assignment.
“They’re a good team,” said Beirne. “Against Bath, they showed lots of patches of good rugby. It’s going to be a tough battle. They’re coming to Thomond Park and we need to put our best foot forward.”
A significant difference between now and when Ulster beat Munster in Belfast on January 2nd is that the team has regained confidence despite a malfunctioning set piece.
Munster had a lineout from an attacking position late in the Toulon game and it was turned over by the French side in one of the more disappointing aspects of the province’s performance. But overall, the mood is positive, especially regarding their attitude and willingness to contest.
“[Attitude] was never in doubt to be honest,” said Beirne. “No one panicked, no one ever felt like they were panicking.
“It felt like we were going to get back into it. We knew we were going to have a purple patch of our own, and we did. But unfortunately we just felt a little bit short.”
Munster’s lineout failures were not just brought about by good scouting work from Toulon, but also a systematic breakdown from the visitors, which Beirne did not shy away from.
“They defended well towards the end,” he said. “There was some mix up in one of the calls, we had a late change towards the end and maybe that had a little bit of an effect.
“But it shouldn’t, we should be much better than that. It’s obviously frustrating that we lost one there towards the end when it was in a pivotal point of the game.”
Although the fitness of scrumhalves Craig Casey and Paddy Patterson remains in doubt, Munster expect lock Jean Kleyn and prop Oli Jager to be available for the Castres visit.
“[Kleyn] ran around Friday’s training run. He just wasn’t good enough to be a realistic option to be playing,” said Munster coach Clayton McMillan. “But we’re pretty confident that he’ll be all right.”
