MUNSTER vs NORTHAMPTON SAINTS

HC: Round 6 – Pool One

Thomond Park: Friday, 22^nd January – 8pm

MATCH PREVIEW

Or…

“THOMOND AND HAVE A GO IF YOU THINK YOU’RE HARD ENOUGH”

MUSINGS…

So, picture the scene. It is approaching 8pm on a Saturday in early October and the vast majority of the people shoe-horned into a packed Franklin’s Gardens in the market town of Northampton are currently going completely bonkers as M. Berdos (the “Sir” on the day) blows for no-side. Northampton Saints have beaten the mighty Munster in the Heineken Cup! Again! Meanwhile, some four and a half thousand miles away, it is just three in the afternoon and yours truly is contemplating whether to have another Red Stripe or perhaps try a post lunch cocktail by the pool. Decisions, decisions. Suddenly, there’s a message on my phone. From Dad. Dad doesn’t do messages so my heart immediately sinks. What’s wrong? I know Pap’s not been well but he was on good form just a few days earlier when we left for Jamaica. With trepidation I open the message. “What a Match! Saints win!” Huzzah! I cry and it’s Margueritas for the rest of the day. And the point of these idle ramblings? Well, it’s my clumsy way of showing just how big that game just over three months ago was to the people of the town. Dad doesn’t text (actually, it transpired Mum had done it) but he just had to let me know straight away what the result was.

Friday’s game in the city of Limerick is much, much bigger!

BACKGROUND

To say it’s “winner-take-all” is not quite right, but it’s pretty darn close. Munster sit top of Pool One with Saints lying just two points behind. Win the game, you top the group and look forward to a home-tie in the quarter-finals. A narrow loss and you’ll more than likely qualify but have to travel, in Saints’ case probably back to Ireland. A heavy defeat and Saints might still just squeak into the Amlin Cup and then have to go and defeat Wasps in the final to retain the trophy. Which would be nice. But not as heavenly as turning over the Irish on their patch which is what we are setting out to do.

When the draw for the 2009/10 Heineken Cup pools was made at the start of the season the majority of pundits didn’t give Saints a prayer of getting out of the group. Here we had a team not long back from National League One and still finding their feet in the Premiership. Sure we had had success in the Challenge Cup but we found ourselves up against the French Champions, the Celtic League champions and the top team in Italy. Well we thought, the team is on a learning curve and the matches will be great experience for what is essentially a young team. A chance to qualify? You’re having a laugh, mate! But that’s exactly where this blend of youthful exuberance and gnarled experience now stand. Just 80 minutes from the last eight of the premier rugby union club competition in the world. Who’d have thought it!

Looking forward to Friday I’m reminded of what could be considered to be Saints last “epic” match in Heineken rugby. It was March 2007 and Saints were travelling to Spain to take on the French aristocrats of Biarritz Olympique in the quarter-final of that year’s competition. Then, as now, the nodding heads in the media believed that Northampton were just travelling to make up the numbers – Biarritz would stroll to victory and we could return to the league and concentrate on avoiding relegation (oops!). Coincidently I wrote the preview for that game and argued the case for a Saints win. Keep it tight until half-time, I said. Starve the opposition of the ball and who knows what might happen. Result – Biarritz 6-7 Northampton. Something similar might just be the order of the day come Friday.

THE TEAMS

When you look at the likely teams for this weekend there is, at least in my eyes, little to choose between them. A Munster front-row of du Preez, Fogarty and Hayes up against Murray, Hartley and Tonga’huia is a tight call but I believe we shade it on sheer dynamism, not just at the set-piece but in the loose.

At lock, Munster’s O’Callaghan and O’Connell need absolutely no introduction to the rugby supporter however they were comprehensively out-played by Kruger and Lawes back in October. Will Jim Mallinder opt for the same combination this time out or opt for the nous of Lobbe in the cauldron of Thomond Park?

In the back row, it will probably be Quinlan, Ronan (why do I always think “Ro-land”, thanks, Tucker and friends) and Wallace for the Reds. A formidable unit no doubt but I fail to see why the likes of Best, the increasingly impressive Dowson and the seemingly inexhaustible Sergeant Wilson cannot at least hold parity and of course Long-Arm could be in the mix here too.

So, to the pretty boys. O’Leary and O’Gara have both the experience and the sheer chutzpah to boss a game if it takes their fancy. For Saints it will be Dickson at 9 but what will be Jim’s call at 10? A statement of attacking intent would be to put Shane at fly-half. Get the Irish boys worried and attack from the start. Is that the right move? I’m not sure and would be tempted to start with Myler. Play the territory and make Munster play the game from deep in their own half. Keep the score as close as a gnat’s chuff up to sixty minutes then release the blonde one to win the game. I’m just glad it’s not my call!

For both teams the rest of the back-line really pick themselves. In the centres it should be Downey and Clarke for the visitors and we know that neither will take a backward step. Up against them should be de Villiers and Earl, both of whom could change the match in an instant. It’s all going to come down to the one moment over the game which could make the difference. Munster’s back three of Hurley, Howlett and Warwick would strike fear in the ranks of most teams but are not Bruce and, on current form, Ashton and Foden at least on par?

THE END GAME

What I fear the result may come down to is the venue. Thomond Park, recently renovated to a new capacity of 26,500 will be a wall of noise come 8pm on Friday evening. Can the Saints silence the crowd in the first twenty minutes? It could be the key to the game. If Munster get off to a flyer then it could be a long night for those that are travelling, not forgetting the keen souls that are at FG/in the pub/behind the sofa that find themselves having to listen to (probably) Miles Harrison and Stuart Barnes. But, consider this. Come Friday evening we know that Sky will have its usual Munster love-in. How good would it be to hear Smiley Miley shouting, “and it’s Northampton, breaking Irish hearts!” and, in the moment of quiet before the conversion, listening with a keen ear to Lardy Boy tearing up the script that he had so painstakingly written. We can but dream.

Dream? Why not? On Friday, it will be just over three years to the day that Leicester Tigers went to Thomond Park and defied the odds to triumph. I say we can repeat the Tigers feat but it is such a big ask.

Reading back this preview I realise that I’ve asked so many questions. Questions, the answers to which we will only find out over two halves of the most intense, high class rugby that the club game can offer. I’m not going to predict a result; that’s for the players of both sides to work out for themselves. All I would ask is that you, the 16^th man at Thomond Park or the 17^th man watching the game closer to home get behind your Northampton Saints for the full 80. I can assure you that, what ever the result, the boys in the Green, Black and Gold will do us proud.

AND FINALLY…

What’s with the Munster cap at the top of the article, I hear you ask? I know - another question. Some months ago a member of the writer’s household used a popular auction website to buy a programme from the 2000 Heineken Cup Final which I seem to recall Saints won. Against Munster…

9-8...

At Twickenham…

Anyway…

There was a note enclosed with the programme which read, and I paraphrase, “I’ve also enclosed a cap for ye, it’s no good to me so ye might as well enjoy it”. Not as much as we’d enjoy a win in Ireland this Friday, Sunshine. Bring it on!

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