Expect much more from Munster

The message from Munster after their dramatic United Rugby Championship (URC) semifinal win over Leinster is clear: they have unfinished business and want to have the final say in the competition’s climax.                 

They qualified for the final with a nerve-jangling 16-15 win to set up a meeting with the Stormers on May 27 in Cape Town.

Semifinal hero Jack Crowley, who slotted a 78th-minute drop goal to decisively edge his team in front, led the chorus after a tight and absorbing clash against their countrymen in Dublin.

“This can’t be our final, so we won’t let it be,” Crawley said on his team’s website.

“We will do everything we can to prepare and travel well. We’ve been there before, so we know what it’s like.”

Indeed they have. On April 15, Munster upstaged the Stormers 26-24 and inflicted on them their only home defeat of this campaign. Munster hope the muscle memory from that win will remain.

“We know what it takes to win down there,” said Crawley. “They are a quality side. It is a tough place to go. We’ve won there, so we have that belief going down. We will not fool ourselves, it is going to take our all. We’ll put in the effort. We can’t let this be it. We have to go on and win the trophy,” he added.

His words were echoed by straight-talking coach Graham Rowntree, who believes both teams will be better in the Cape Town clash.

“This can’t be our final, looking at how we broke them [the Stormers] down and dealt with their power game, but they’ll be better than that night,” said the former England prop.

“They’ll be battle hardened themselves, so it will be a real challenge for us. We back the work we’ve done, we back our fitness. That will be our sixth away game on the bounce; it’s unprecedented and we’ll enjoy it. There’s loads to improve on in our game.

“We’ll look at our game, strip our game apart this week, have a good review and keep going at our game. After the Glasgow victory it was very much still looking at our game, growing our game, just looking at what we can do, as boring as that sounds,” Rowntree added.

Few invoke the Munster spirit quite like grizzled and combative flank Peter O’Mahony, now in his 10th year as club captain.

“Pete spoke really well in the dressing room about this not being our final tonight,” said Rowntree, who went on to describe the emotional post-match scenes in Dublin.

“I turned to a couple of coaches and said ‘Is this happening?’. Yes, it is. The fans, family, support us everywhere, so that was true emotion, but we don’t want it to end here. This can’t be our final.”

Munster are expected to have influential trio RG Snyman (lock), Conor Murray (scrumhalf) and Malakai Fekitoa (centre) restored to fitness in time for the final.