There are ghosts all around Thomond Park. Late into Saturday’s icy cold night the spectre of Ronan O’Gara loomed largest over this once impenetrable rugby citadel.
The steady hand. The quarterback. The franchise player.
This can be viewed as the exposure of Ian Keatley or merely a study in the absolute importance placed upon individual control and therewith points gathering in team sport.
Considering this duel against a hardly intimidating Leicester Tigers was measured in inches, Keatley left his ruler out on the sodden Limerick turf.
"You have an international outhalf and you want to be getting them, you know, particularly the one in front of the posts," stated Munster coach Anthony Foley. "Definitely want to get them."
Four minutes in hell may have shattered Keatley's already frayed confidence. On 28 minutes the Dubliner missed a penalty in front of the posts that would have put Munster 9-6 ahead just seconds after Owen Williams had levelled the contest.
Then, hidden out on the right wing, his occasional inability to make a front up tackle was exposed by Fijian winger Verniki Goneva.
Leicester knew where Keatley resides during those back foot passages of play. Their attack eased towards him thanks to a splendid pass from their devilishly hard to contain scrumhalf Ben Youngs.
Took out
But Foley was more concerned by how Leicester made it down field after
Dan Cole
pushed James Cronin who bumped into
Mike Fitzgerald
who took out
Andrew Conway
as the winger pursued an attacking chip. Romain Poite adjudged this to be a Leicester penalty.
“To penalise James Cronin for being pushed by Dan Cole into another player who then shoulder charged Andrew Conway, and that ended up with the penalty that ultimately ended up with the maul that led to the try, it’s nothing short of a disgrace. The officials had a look at the TV and they couldn’t see it. If you are going to look at a picture look at the whole picture.
“I’m just baffled by it. I said it to Romain Poite at half-time.
“That’s a massive decision. He just needs to be accountable for it. It was a massive turning point in the game.”
But really this game turned on the errant boot of the player employed to guide Munster through the silent moments on this hallowed patch of land.
Or maybe that’s stretching it. Keatley missed the kick that led to the 22 that led to the Conway incident that led to the maul that led to Leicester’s carries until they got their Fijian winger breezing past the 28 year old.
“There is a massive shift in the game,” Foley went on.
“Everybody is giving ourselves the three points. Jog back and thinking next job.
“Suddenly it is missed. You need to reassess and get back on with it.
“Obviously another incident happened after that and then we had the over throw on the lineout...”
That was by until recently fourth choice hooker Niall Scannell (an accursed position for Munster).
The ball was flung over Donnacha Ryan, where the unsin-binned Fitzgerald grabbed and dived beneath Munster’s South African muscle BJ Botha and CJ Stander. An easy try. At Thomond Park. So strange.
“It’s all our doing,” Foley conceded about such errors. “That’s the hardest part to it...We have given ourselves a mountain to climb.
Good leaders
“Did we have good leaders out there? We did. We controlled a lot of aspects of the game. We put ourselves in a position to get back within touching distance. We didn’t build on that.”
The points, the control lead to more questions about the man who wears 10.
Foley is asked about JJ Hanrahan, the 23-year-old Kerry fly half, leaving for Northampton last summer and the suggestion that Ian Madigan could be wearing Munster red next season.
“We offered JJ a contract, he chose to go to Northampton, that’s his choice. The Madigan thing, that came from Dublin. Nobody in Munster has spoken to Madigan or attempted to speak to Madigan.
“That can be unsettling for a player, particularly in the week of a big game, whether that be a Leinster player or a Munster player, or whoever is wearing the jersey.”
Keatley left the field on 73 minutes, the bonus point out of reach, clearly spent from an unquestionably honest, albeit flawed performance, to the sound of derision.
“That’s very disappointing. For a very knowledgeable crowd to do that, I’m very disappointed in that.”
Tyler Bleyendaal, the 25-year-old perennially injured New Zealander, was a late withdrawal as Keatley's understudy.
“Same problem. Came up yesterday for the Captain’s Run, last couple of kicks he pulled up.
“We need to investigate it further. Frustrating for the lad, frustrating for the players, his team-mates and me and the other coaches that a player of his quality we can’t get him on the pitch.”
It denies Munster an alternative option at Welford Road this Sunday?
“It does, yeah,” concluded the Munster coach.
