Van Graan insists Munster looking at bigger picture after pre-season defeat

Johann van Graan made no apology for Friday’s pre-season loss to Exeter Chiefs as he exposed his wider squad to the rigours of the 2018/19 campaign ahead.

Van Graan insists Munster looking at bigger picture after pre-season defeat

Johann van Graan made no apology for Friday’s pre-season loss to Exeter Chiefs as he exposed his wider squad to the rigours of the 2018/19 campaign ahead.

Munster kick off their Guinness PRO14 title bid on Saturday at Thomond Park when conference rivals the Cheetahs travel up from South Africa, 51 weeks after a 51-18 hammering in Limerick in just their second game in the league.

Franco Smith’s side is a different animal now having finished last season strongly to claim third place in Conference A and reach the play-offs at the first attempt, losing an away quarter-final to Scarlets.

Fellow South African van Graan will have to select from a squad still missing the majority of the 19 players that tripped off his tongue in Cork on Friday night as the younger guns failed to lay a glove on a fully-loaded Exeter side in a 12-0 defeat to the English Premiership runners-up, who are also Munster’s opening-round Champions Cup pool opponents in October.

There were positives, such as the performances of Academy backs Liam Coombes and Shane Daly, who came off the bench in a much-improved second half, though Munster, despite dominance in possession and territory and a lively performance from replacement half-backs Neil Cronin and JJ Hanrahan, failed to find a route through an excellent defence.

Hands were definitely put up for inclusion in this weekend’s PRO14 opener but head coach van Graan drew the line at describing his line-up choices this week as dilemmas.

I won’t say selection headaches, currently I don’t have a lot of options available to pick, currently we only have three wings training with us. No, if you call it a headache it can go both ways.

“I thought Liam Coombes really did well. I thought Shane, again, really did well. But it is such a long season, you are going to need or use more than 50 guys. We used more than 50 guys last season, so you have to give these players opportunity to play and this team (that faced Exeter) will definitely not go out for the next part of the season as a team because such a lot of guys are yet to come back.

“If you quickly go through it, James Cronin, Rhys Marshall, Niall Scannell, Stephen Archer, John Ryan, Tadhg Beirne, Peter O’Mahony, CJ Stander, Chris Cloete, Conor Oliver, Jack O’Donoghue — that is only in the forwards — that still need to come into the team.

“Then you have Conor Murray, Joey Carbery, Tyler Bleyendaal, Chris Farrell, Jaco Taute, Keith Earls, Andrew Conway, Ronan O’Mahony, and I may have left one out. I don’t want to use it as an excuse. All I want to say is that we went into these two (friendly) games with a specific mindset.

“Obviously, I would love to win every single game, that is important, the winning part of it, but there is a bigger picture in mind and a bigger plan, we are just going to stick with our plan.

The biggest positive for me is the lessons that we learned today. We played against a quality attacking side. I thought our defence was actually pretty good tonight, to keep them down with only two tries.

“If you look at some other results, once they get their noses in front they can really punish you, so I am very happy with our second-half performance as a team, but not happy with the opportunities that we didn’t convert into points.”

The Munster boss also was encouraged by debuant Arno Botha, the two-cap Springbok back row he signed from London Irish and who put in an athletic and abrasive performance off the bench that will be needed during the early part of the season in the absences of Stander, O’Donoghue, Cloete and captain O’Mahony in particular.

“That is specifically why we got them. We have such a big amount of international loose forwards in our squad and then guys with long-term injuries, that is why we got another loose forward.

He didn’t play for a long time and I thought it is a really good 40 minutes from his side, his ball-carrying ability, he is just strong in contact, he got us over the gainline, so I am really happy with his performance. I think he has still got a lot more to offer.

So too Irish-qualified full-back Mike Haley, who joined from Sale Sharks to fill the vacancy created by the departing Simon Zebo, while van Graan added of an experienced wing: “I just have to single out Darren Sweetnam again, I thought he was fantastic. That is why I took him off and just stuck with the plan because we need him going into the league rounds.”

more courts articles

Man (25) in court charged with murdering his father and attempted murder of mother Man (25) in court charged with murdering his father and attempted murder of mother
Man appears in court charged with false imprisonment of woman in van Man appears in court charged with false imprisonment of woman in van
Man in court over alleged false imprisonment of woman Man in court over alleged false imprisonment of woman

More in this section

Peter O'Mahony 26/3/2024 Returning Ireland stars to boost Munster ahead of 'business end of season'
Ronan Kelleher 25/3/2024 Ronan Kelleher and Leinster have 'unfinished business' in Europe
Declan Danaher 27/3/2024 Ireland still have a 'long way to go' ahead of Italy's visit says Declan Danaher
Sport Push Notifications

By clicking on 'Sign Up' you will be the first to know about our latest and best sporting content on this browser.

Sign Up
Sport
Newsletter

Latest news from the world of sport, along with the best in opinion from our outstanding team of sports writers

Sign up
Cookie Policy Privacy Policy Brand Safety FAQ Help Contact Us Terms and Conditions

© Examiner Echo Group Limited