Munster prove their champion qualities with Highveld double: ‘It’s special’

Munster proved without a shadow of a doubt that it will take a special performance form one of the other United Rugby Championship (URC) teams to end their reign as champs after a superb tour of South Africa.

The Irish giants headed to SA with the difficult task of taking on the Bulls and Lions on the Highveld and emerged with a full house of 10 points, after winning 27-22 at Loftus and 33-13 at Ellis Park.

ALSO READ: Why URC champs Munster relish touring SA – ‘If we win here we can beat anyone’

It is an incredibly impressive feat, especially considering the form that the Bulls were in, while the Lions at home are also very tough opposition, but the defending champs were in ruthless form to triumph on both sides of the Jukskei.

Big effort

“It was a big effort from the lads, playing two weeks at altitude. To come away with 10 points is special. Not many teams have done that, in fact I am not sure if any team has from where we come from. So I am delighted,” said Munster coach Graham Rowntree after the Lions win.

“We have a bit of momentum now. We spoke a lot about momentum this time last year (on their way to the title). But we have to take it game by game. Each game we will focus on that before looking to the next.

“This does give us a lot of belief and momentum. We are getting a few guys back from injury, and we have a week off now to prepare for Connacht at home.”

Where Munster are most impressive is their ability to win with limited possession and territory, while they have shown a ruthless streak taking any points on offer.

Big win

Against the Bulls the stats were pretty close, and the early second half red card to flyhalf Johan Goosen definitely assisted Munster in making a comeback to win that game, but against the Lions the stats were heavily lopsided in the hosts favour but the visitors still claimed a big win.

Munster captain Tadhg Beirne was asked if this was a knockout winning gameplan that Munster had developed and would continue to follow, but he admitted that it doesn’t always work.

“Every game is different. We didn’t manage to do it against Northampton (in the Champions Cup) and we took a lot of learnings from that,” explained Beirne.

“The way we have played over the last two weeks has given us some good confidence and we are pretty much in knockout rugby from now until the end (of the season). So hopefully we will continue to play like this and get the wins.

“It is something we want to do every game but we don’t always achieve it. Our plan was to take our points when we had the opportunity to do that, and when we got into the 22m we knew we had to make it count. So it was a brilliant plan from the coaching staff.”