Graham Rowntree has hailed his team after their gutsy, sleeves-rolled-up 17-6 win away to Northampton which gave him his first Champions Cup victory as head coach and gave the province their most significant shot in the arm under his watch so far.
Rowntree described it as a “huge, huge win for us and in the manner that we did it, we dug in there. Most of the second half, we were on our own goal-line, three yellow cards.
“I’m proud of them, really proud of them. Our defensive effort there was exceptional. The lads have done a lot of good work there with Denis Leamy. He has been great for us, he’s really grown into a very good coach.
“So, the nature of the win, we would have liked for it to have been more glamorous, scoring tries, but to dig in like that, that’s massive for us going forward.”
While there was much to admire in the manner Munster outscored the home side by two tries to nil during a first period in which all the points were scored, it was clear that his side’s resilience and resourcefulness in a scoreless second period played out to a backdrop of increasingly heavy rain was just as pleasing. This was particularly so given they suffered three of the second half’s four yellow cards.
“It says a lot about the club and our desire to get off the floor and help the man next to you. That’s Munster DNA anyway. We speak about it a lot, we train it in the week but that was a proper test for us.”
As for the 30-man all-in melee which somehow resulted in just one yellow card apiece for Lewis Ludlum and Jack O’Donoghue, Rowntree said he didn’t see the origins of the brawl.
“We will have a look at that this week on review and look at our actions there. I’m not going to get into it now. We need to look at things calmly after the event.”
When asked if Munster might also have been a penalty try for Craig Casey taking out James Ramm and incurring Munster’s second sinbinning, Rowntree admitted: “Potentially, again, we will look at our actions there and what we can do better. We will do that in the review in a calmer environment.
“We can’t be having guys in the bin, you need 15 guys on the field these days so we will have a good look at that this week.”
