Costello: We Wanted The Performance To Reflect ‘How Much Those Lads Meant To Us’

Retiring duo Peter O’Mahony and Stephen Archer, and departing scrum half Conor Murray, played for the final time at Thomond Park tonight, taking their mammoth haul of Munster appearances to a combined 702.

It is a huge amount of experience to lose this summer, and Munster made it clear that they want the trio to bow out with the buzz of a title chase after earning a 38-20 bonus point win over Ulster.

Giving O’Mahony, Archer, and Murray a winning farewell at the Limerick ground was certainly a powerful motivating factor, as Munster’s interim head coach Ian Costello revealed that captain Tadhg Beirne’s pre-match words really set the tone.

“The biggest relief…we all know there’s play-offs, we know what’s at stake in terms of Champions Cup, what it means for the province,” said Costello, speaking following a six tries-to-two victory that has temporarily moved Munster up to fifth in the table.

“We know that there’s a huge amount of external pressure but actually this week, we went a lot deeper than that. We knew that was there.

“It was about Peter, it was about Conor, it was about Stevie. It was about what they’ve done for Munster, how they deserve to be sent off.

“We had a (pre-match) meeting on the pitch tonight and Tadhg spoke so well, and it really captured the whole week around putting a performance out there that reflected how much those lads meant to us and meant to the province.

“That’s more powerful than anything, and it probably reflected what those lads meant to us. In a lot of elements, without being perfect, I think we did that. That’s the relief.”

Both teams had lost their last two matches, leaving them scrambling to stay in the race for a top eight finish. Ulster were in the hunt for their first victory at Thomond Park since 2014 thanks to first-half tries from centres Stuart McCloskey and Jude Postlethwaite.

Young out-half Jack Murphy also kicked well from the tee, contributing 10 points, but Munster, needing to straighten out a shaky lineout, secured their bonus point and nipped ahead by half-time.

Turning around with a 24-20 advantage, converted efforts from player-of-the-match Tom Farrell (54 minutes) and O’Mahony (58) opened up a decisive lead for the Munstermen in this penultimate round fixture.

Ulster were left to rue yellow cards for Scott Wilson and McCloskey, and some costly defensive lapses, and despite twice trailing by seven points during a helter-skelter first half, Munster slowly got a grip on this ‘must-win’ clash.

A manic spell early in the second quarter saw three tries registered in the space of just four minutes. Farrell and Postlethwaite swapped scores before Murphy was charged down by Beirne for an opportunist five-pointer that owed much to Munster’s pre-match analysis.

Costello reflected: “We scored, they scored, we scored. That was the crazy bit. Genuinely, (attack coach) Mike (Prendergast) previewed a very similar clip – Jean Kleyn blocked someone down in training, it was shown later in the week around targeting the ball-flight.

“You don’t always get results like that, but Gavin (Coombes) got one against La Rochelle, and that got referenced in the week, and we thought there might be one in it.

“You might get one every four or five games, but it was really pleasing. Tadhg’s determination to stay on his feet when Jack weas probably swinging out of him. I forgot about that crazy two or three minutes.”

Winning the second half 14-0 not only sewed up an important result for Munster, but gives them decent momentum to take into next week’s encounter with Benetton in Cork. A win there would cement their play-off place and guarantee Champions Cup rugby for next season.

Costello said it was ‘not perfect, but definitely our best performance for a long time’ after winning just one of their previous five URC games which included disappointing home defeats to Edinburgh and the Vodacom Bulls.

Their second-half defensive shutout of Ulster, especially during Josh Wycherley’s sin-binning in the final quarter, will need to be replicated if they want to go further in the competition.

“Now we’ve got to back it up next week. We’ve a full house in Cork (against Benetton), we’ve got to go and make sure we do the job and finish it off so we are in the play-offs in two weeks’ time.

“It’s the strongest squad we’ve had training for a while. That made training competitive, there was a good edge to training and that brought the best out in terms of our preparation.

“Huge credit to the lads in terms of the way they went about it today, and we have to acknowledge the crowd. It was an unbelievable atmosphere.

“Peter when he scored his try, the singing when the lads were digging in (defensively). I thought the crowd really responded to it, and that was pretty special tonight,” he added.