Larkham: Munster are fairly evenly matched with Leinster

Attack coach admits doubts have begun to creep into his side’smindset

Munster coach Stephen Larkham. Photo: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

Cian Tracey Twitter Email

March 31 2021 02:30 AM

In the immediate aftermath of Munster’s record sixth consecutive defeat to Leinster in last weekend’s Guinness PRO14 final, Johann van Graan was honest enough to admit that the champions are currently the best team in the league “by a mile”.

You’d be hard pushed to find anyone to really argue with the Munster head coach’s fair assessment of the balance of power, but one member of his own backroom staff was certainly not in agreement.

Facing the music after yet another big defeat to your arch rivals can be a tricky business, particularly in the sense that coaches are always keen to accentuate the positives.

However, it was interesting to note that Stephen Larkham believes Munster are, in fact, evenly matched with Leinster, despite most people believing that last weekend’s scoreline in no way reflected Leo Cullen’s side dominance.

Having had time to properly reflect on the defeat, Larkham came to the conclusion that Munster were not far off beating their old foes.

And the attack coach arrived at yesterday’s press conference armed with stats to back up his assertion.

“So, if you look at it, Leinster had 45 possessions in the game and they made 14 errors with those,” Larkham said.

“We had 36 possessions and we made 10 errors, so it’s like 32pc error rate for them and 28pc error rate for us. Yes, we made mistakes as well, but there are other little fundamentals that we weren’t happy with.”

With another huge game coming up against Toulouse on Saturday, Munster have to try and put a positive spin on things and that was definitely the approach Larkham took.

When asked directly if Munster are evenly matched with Leinster or are they now miles ahead as per Van Graan’s remarks, Larkham responded: “They are and I think after a game you’ve got to give credit to the team that played well and Leinster played well, there’s no doubt about that.

“We were evenly matched. They just got us on the night. It’s one try between us really that sort of broke our back in that second half.

“We couldn’t fight back and then they applied pressure in that second half better than we applied pressure to them and, like I said, we’ve been pushing Leinster better than anyone else and we are.

“Leinster are ahead of us at the moment, but we’re fairly evenly matched. If you look at a two-horse race, the odds are not 100/1 against us.”

It was then pointed out to Larkham that Leinster had butchered four
first-half tries alone, but the Australian remained steadfast in his view.

“Potentially, but then if we took some of our chances in the first half, it’s a different story as well,” he reasoned.

“We had a number of chances down that edge that we dropped.

“We were inside their 22 twice, CJ (Stander) got ripped and Mikey (Haley) lost the ball and they were promising phases for us with good numbers in front of us so, yeah, you can look at all the what-ifs but realistically, it’s the end score which you’ve got to look at and they beat us by one try and a penalty but, realistically, it was the one try that really broke us.”

Not everyone will agree, yet Munster must find a way to quickly turn the page. The squad were given Monday off to allow extra time to get over the disappointment of losing again to Leinster, which was a big call to make in what is a massive week for the club.

“When you lose the number of games that we’ve lost to Leinster you start to doubt yourself, so that’s pretty much it in a nutshell,” Larkham admitted.

“When you make a mistake you get these thoughts popping into your head about potentially hanging on to that mistake for too long and forgetting about the fact that we are good; we are good enough to win this game.

“So just that belief in one another, and yourself, more than anything else,” he added.

As a player, Larkham has experience of being on the wrong end of a ferocious rivalry, as he was part of an Australian team, who for years, were desperately attempting to close the gap on New Zealand.

Finding a way of translating that into his coaching of this Munster team will be crucial, as Larkham looks to help his players recover from the “doubt” which he referred to.

“It came from belief, so Wallabies versus the All Blacks,” he added.

“It’s probably there at the moment. They’re boasting about how many times they’ve won the Bledisloe (Cup) and how many years in a row now.

“We definitely had that and there was definitely a bit of an aura around the All Blacks in the early ’90s and then by the late ’90s we won the Bledisloe and it came from belief.

“It came from really good fundamentals, really good systems and belief. We got there and we became the best team in the world on the back of that,” he concluded.

Munster have a way to go before reaching the same heights.