Under pressure Munster need to get something from trip to Toulon
Peter O'Mahony during Munster rugby squad training at the University of Limerick. Picture: Eóin Noonan/Sportsfile
MUNSTER travel to the south of France on Saturday to face former European champions Toulon at the Stade Felix Mayol knowing that they are fast entering last chance saloon in terms of their Champions Cup aspirations for 2024.
This fixture is the meeting of the sides that lie fifth and sixth in a six-team pool, and with only four teams qualifying for the last-16 stage of the competition, and with one round remaining after this weekend, the magnitude of this encounter is plainly obvious.
Both clubs failed to win their opening home fixture and now find themselves in a hole.
It is possible that a five-pointer on the last weekend, against an already qualified Northampton side, might see Munster scrape through, but they would probably need favours elsewhere for that scenario to arise.
Quite simply, they need to leave the south of France with something.
A win would be perfect obviously, but a losing bonus point or a four-try bonus point might end up being a lifesaver come Sunday week when all the pools are done and dusted.
Luckily for Munster, the two top sides in Pool C, Northampton Saints and Exeter Chiefs, are at home this weekend to Bayonne and Glasgow, respectively, and two home wins there would keep Munster in the hunt for a qualification spot, even if they were to lose this weekend.
Munster’s injury crisis has received considerable press coverage of late, with the players on the injury list now being too numerous to list, but Toulon have their issues too, with their talisman flanker Charles Ollivon out for the guts of a month with a quad injury.
Toulon showed their pedigree by winning the Challenge Cup last year, beating the Glasgow Warrior 43-19 at the Aviva Stadium, but they have found the going at Champions Cup level to be much sterner stuff, with them losing to the Exeter Chiefs and Northampton Saints in rounds 1 and 2, which has left them propping up the Pool C table.
The last historic meeting between the two clubs was in March of 2018 when Munster required a late Andrew Conway wonder-try to win at Thomond Park on a 20-19 scoreline.
There have been three other meetings between them in Europe and it is no surprise that it is 2-2 in the head-to-head, with the home side winning on each occasion.
Bar that last match in Limerick, the other ties were actually comfortable affairs for the home side, which is not a good omen for Munster this Saturday. More prepared Munster sides have travelled to this venue in previous campaigns and been walloped.
The wheels have really come off the Munster wagon since being 24-13 up, and playing some scintillating attacking rugby, against Exeter last month.
They conceded 19 unanswered points to lose that one 32-24 and then failed to score a single try in the two interprovincial games they played over the Christmas period, scoring only 12 points in losses to Leinster and Connacht.
Injury after injury has not helped, with Munster head coach Graham Rowntree probably feeling that his side currently cannot catch a break.
With the current injury situation, it is difficult to see how Munster can quickly turn around their form, but if they hope to be involved in the business end of the tournament then they are going to have to pull something out of the hat this weekend.
Some more of that fantastic attacking play witnessed in Exeter would certainly help for starters, but you feel that even that would be pointless without improvement in the bread-and-butter areas such as scrum and lineout.
This week’s squad update indicated that Oli Jager, Fineen Wycherley, Alex Nankivell, Niall Scannell, Peter O’Mahony, Joey Carbery and Patrick Campbell are all there or thereabouts in terms of being available again.
Saturday might come too soon for some of them, but if a few of them are deemed fit enough even to make the bench then it might make a huge difference to Munster’s season.
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