Posted by Cardiff Rugby and away games in Ireland have a long and winding history with the word “brave”, from the meaningful to the straw grasping.
There’s been bravery in the continuing effort through 80 minutes despite some heavy defeats in the Emerald Isle over the years, there’s been some seriously brave supporting as fans have held on for dear life in the winds of Galway, and there’s been some genuinely brave performances from the players when picking up rare wins across the Irish Sea.
Saturday night at Thomond Park wasn’t quite the latter of those, but it was as close as we’ve got in recent times as the Blue & Blacks brought two losing bonus points back from Munster in a 23-20 loss. It was a game that ebbed and flowed, but was it two points gained and three points lost? The answer is probably both in terms of where we are and where we want to go.
There’s the usual caveats around playing a side like Munster when it comes to the playing budgets and resources available to Irish rugby, the clown show that Welsh rugby continues to be, and the natural touch of home bias in the refereeing. That forward pass ahead of Ruadhan Quinn’s first half try wouldn’t have looked out of place in the NFL, for example.
And Cardiff are still building, of course. The squad had average age of 26, slightly inflated by Josh McNally’s experience, and included two teenagers in Steff Emanuel and Tom Bowen. There was new signings Javan Sebastian, Sam Wainwright and Taine Basham still settling in, and it was only the second game with Corniel Van Zyl stepping up to Head Coach.
Yet having said all that it is also true that the Blue & Blacks led on three separate occasions on Saturday night, and actually spent more of the game ahead on the scoreboard than the home side did. We missed five kicks at goal across three separate goal kickers, turned down a further kickable penalty and were only 80% at the lineout.
While the odds remain stacked against Cardiff when going to a side like Munster, there has to be a time when games like the one we saw at Thomond Park on Saturday night are turned from brave losses, no matter how valuable those two points are, and become statement wins in the hunt for a United Rugby Championship play-off spot.
There are still plenty of positives to take from the performance for Corniel Van Zyl though; the defence on the whole was physical and organised again, the aerial game was more competitive, the scrum won crucial penalties and the maul defence caused an Irish side in problems in Ireland, something which hasn’t been written about the Blue & Blacks for some time.
It was the attack that was most commendable though, once again moving at a tempo and with an accuracy level that caused the Munster defence all sorts of problems, and resulted in the scoring of four excellent tries all of which were finished off by the starting wingers.
Callum Sheedy was central to three of them, putting in deft kick passes in the face of a goal line blitz defence for both the first and third Cardiff tries on the night, while his slick handling skills were on full show as he created a line break and then the decisive assist for the second try.
Unfortunately for the fly-half his shine was stolen by the man he created those second and third tries for, and who scored the fourth try put on by Ioan Lloyd and Alun Lawrence, as Tom Bowen became the youngest hat-trick scorer for the club in the professional era, beating Rhys Williams’ record after three scores against Neath in May 2000.
The winger showed off his natural try poacher instinct, as well as his incredible short burst acceleration, with his all-round game impressing as a willing defender and an able kick chaser who can disrupt opposition players in the air despite his short stature preventing him from taking many clean balls out of the sky.
However, these positives and the two points bravely gained in Munster are only worthy of something towards the goal of URC play-off qualification if they are backed up by a home win against Connacht this coming Saturday night at the Arms Park. Claim four, or even better five, points and it’s a successful first three rounds, but fail to do so and it’s an early back foot for Cardiff.
The Blue & Blacks owe them one, or maybe three, after their wins over us across the league and Europe earlier this calendar year, and hopefully a confident start to the season on a still night in front of a raucous home crowd will deliver that, so let’s pack CAP and keep this bandwagon rolling.
Cardiff Rugby Life 