Champions Cup: Munster 29 Castres 31
The final whistle was greeted by a stunned incredulity as Munster took their leave of this season’s Champions Cup. The atmosphere, funereal, except for a pocket of Castres fans exultant in celebration. Their delight was understandable having watched their club win for the first time at Thomond Park in a record-breaking 20th encounter.
The French side showed guts, periodically played some excellent rugby, and brought enough heat in the collisions that forced a wagonload of errors, but Munster will acknowledge that the genesis of defeat was rooted in their shortcomings.
Lineout malfunction at crucial times, pilot-error in passing, a general lack of composure when they looked to shift to warp speed in attack, an inability to convert opportunities, and a glut of missed tackles, particularly in the first half, will haunt the review. For the third Champions Cup match in succession Munster conceded 14-points while a player down.
What does Munster’s crushing Champions Cup exit mean for Ireland?
Jack Crowley, who had several excellent moments in general play, kicked two from five with the placed ball while Castres hoovered up every single point from the tee, including two stunning touchline conversions from nerveless replacement Enzo Herve; points of difference when the margins are minuscule.
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It’s not all sackcloth and ashes – Munster outscored the visitors five tries to four, but at crucial times they were undone by a pervasive sloppiness or simply switching off. Tom Farrell’s yellow card was inopportune, but his absence doesn’t explain how the home side coughed up 14 points during that period.
Munster head coach Clayton McMillan admitted the defeat had many factors. “There wasn’t any one thing in particular. I think we missed a couple of kicks at goal. We fell off a few tackles. We created a few opportunities and didn’t quite nail them, missed a couple of lineouts.
“It’s the accumulation of all the little things that make all the difference in the end. They hurt us. You win the game and they don’t seem as important as when you lose, but that’s the margins at this level of the game and games that have a lot riding on them.
“It’s being on the right side of those moments. They had a few more than us.”
It’s a fair summation. He explained that the conversation at half-time, when Munster trailed 17-12, was to “be urgent before you need to get desperate”.
McMillan continued: “When it got out to nine points there late in the game, we saw an urgency about us and an accuracy about us that gave us an opportunity to get back in and score at the death and then give ourselves two minutes.
“In patches last week and this week I thought we played some of our better rugby, and especially attacking-wise created some opportunities, but just not nailing enough of them. The big disappointment for me and the worrying trend I guess is that we work really hard to score some points, but we give up points very quickly after scoring.
“We don’t make it hard for opposition to have to come back and get points, and that’s the one worrying trend for me over the last three or four weeks.”
Castres took a 10-0 lead when Fijian-born centre Vuate Karawalevu found a soft seam on a cutback angle and absorbed a tackle or two before touching down. It was emblematic of aspects of Munster’s at times first-up tackling.
A brace of tries from the outstanding Craig Casey, one of which Crowley converted, nudged Munster into a 12-10 lead two minutes to the interval. But Munster could only watch in horror as the momentum slipped through their fingers when Castres fullback Théo Chabouni followed up his speculative chip that was initially covered well by Jack O’Donoghue.
The ball squirmed from his grasp on the greasy surface and Chabouni beat Casey to the touch. Trailing 17-12 at the interval, it gave added poignancy to the points that Munster left behind and unsympathetic passes spilled on the sodden turf.
When Thaakir Abrahams finished smartly on 46 minutes and Edwin crossed for the first of his two tries, Munster (despite missed conversions) headed into the final quarter 22-12 ahead.
Munster captain Tadhg Beirne said: “I felt like when we went ahead, we were good, and then we just lost our way briefly. We probably dug ourselves into a little hole for playing in our half a little bit at the point, but that had been working for us in the game so it’s hard to go back and say we shouldn’t have done that.
“A few things that we just weren’t ready for, we weren’t switched on and we weren’t good enough in those moments, and they were able to exert more pressure on to us and capitalise on it.”
Castres were denied a try for what looked a very fortuitous forward pass call. It would be wrong to say Munster were in control, even against a Castres side that had started to look a little leg weary.
A quickly taken lineout caught Munster napping, allowing the French side to escape from one end of the pitch to the other. During Farrell’s enforced sabbatical, tries form Geoffrey Palis and the influential Christian Ambadiang revived Castres in spirit and on the scoreboard.
A second try for Edogbo, who had a pronounced impact in providing positive gain-lines, gave Munster a flicker of hope, especially as Castres secondrow Leone Nakawara was in the bin, but it perished when Ambadiang stripped the ball in a tackle in the second to last action in the game.
After Toulon’s 31-14 win over Gloucester on Saturday night, leaving the Premiership side bottom of Pool 2, Munster will now head to the Challenge Cup’s Round of 16, but it won’t be much of a consolation.
SCORING SEQUENCE – 2 mins: Fernandez pen 0-3; 10: Karawalevu try, Fernandez con 0-10; 17: Casey try, Crowley con 7-10; 34: Casey try 12-10; 38: Chabouni try, Fernandz con 12-17; Half-time 12-17; 46: Abrahams try 17-17; 59: Edogbo try 22-17; 67: Palis try, Herve con 22-24; 72: Ambadiang try, Herve con 22-31; 78: Edogbo try, Crowley con 29-31
MUNSTER: S Daly; T Abrahams, T Farrell, A Nankivell, B O’Connor; J Crowley, C Casey; J Loughman, N Scannell, M Ala’alatoa; J Kleyn, F Wycherley; T Beirne (capt), J O’Donoghue, G Coombes.
Replacements: L Barron for Scannell, E Edogbo for Kleyn, B Gleeson for O’Donoghue (all 49 mins), M Milne for Ala’alatoa, JJ Hanrahan for O’Connor (both 56), D Kelly for Nankivell (60).
Yellow card: T Farrell (63 mins).
CASTRES: T Chabouni; C Ambadiang, V Karawalevu, J Goodhue, G Palis; P Popelin, J Fernandez. A Sokobale, L Zarantonello, W Collier; G Maravat, T Staniforth; B Delaporte, B Cope, F Vanverberghe.
Replacements: A Manu for Ambadiang (16-28 mins), A Azar for Collier (40), A Tichit for Sokobale, S Arata Perrone for Fernandez, E Herve for Popelin (all 47), T Durand-Pradere for Zarantonello (56), T Ardron for Cope (57), Manu for Karawalevu (68).
Yellow card: Nakarawa (75).
Referee: M Carley (ENG).
