Graham Rowntree and Munster relishing ‘knockout vibe’ and prospect of home advantage

He hadn’t enjoyed the six-day turnaround between the wins over Ulster and Ospreys, but once his team dealt with the Welsh side in a professional manner, he could enjoy the rest of the rugby.

The 27-10 win may sound like it was a comfortable night for Franco Smith’s Glaswegians, but this was a one-score game until the 75th minute and the Munster coach would have enjoyed the physical nature of the contest as he sipped.

The nature of the URC is that there’ll be no surprises at this time of year and, unlike Leinster who are enduring the kind of logistical headaches Munster had to deal with last year, they knew exactly where they’d be on Saturday at 6pm regardless.

They’ll face the Glasgow side they beat in the quarter-final last year and again in a strange regular-season game back in the autumn.

That was a night when Munster unleashed some brilliant attack and Thomas Ahern soared, but the Scots scored a host of tries off their dominant attacking maul.

So, they’re well warned of what’s coming and know that there’s a need to step things up.

Munster are on an 11-match winning streak in this tournament, but there have been spells within their last three matches where they’ve run into bother.

On Friday, their attacking game struggled so they trusted their game control in what was a mature performance.

With Alex Nankivell expected back this week, they’ll have an extra attacking edge and they’ve missed the influential Kiwi.

“We’ll keep some petrol in the tank for a semi-final,” Rowntree said of the week ahead.

“At this time of the year it’s what you don’t do physically in training, you’ve just got to do enough tactically... we’ve really pulled back training.”

With Jack Crowley opting to take the points at every opportunity, Munster played a different way on Friday, choosing to go to the air and play territory when they struggled to break the Ospreys down.

“We spoke about it, potentially going three, six, nine. Knockout rugby. It’s not been our philosophy all season but it felt right on Friday,” Rowntree said.

“Particularly him [Crowley], in the second half. Pressure, greasy conditions... I thought we managed it well. It was just composed, it was smart, it was cup rugby.

“And Jack’s evolving, isn’t he? Jack’s learning. He knows he ain’t the finished article.

“Against Ulster, he didn’t have his best first half of the game, but he’s turned that around second half and he’s off. He’s leading us well.”

Their maul was excellent, their defence held Ospreys scoreless for 75 minutes and their reserve front-row is now a major weapon with Diarmuid Barron making a timely return, John Ryan operating on the loosehead side after playing most of his career as a No 3 and Oli Jager adding his considerable might.

“The maul was pleasing. It’s something that we’ve put a lot of time into, and it was effective tonight. We’ve got to keep that going, a few more of them please,” Rowntree said.

“He’s played there before,” Rowntree said of Ryan.

“It came about last week with the unavailability of Josh Wycherley and then we had some sickness in the week with some of our young props, Mark Donnelly being one of them, so we had a look at him in training and he was impressive.

“And given what he did coming on last week with Oli, I was really impressed with that.

“He [Ryan] has been good, he’s a big, strong man, that’s what a prop does, he has a bit of work to adapt there but to me, to have that ability to play both sides is important.”

Although Barron’s return was timely and it’ll be good to have Nankivell back, the loss of Ahern and Joey Carbery has compromised Munster’s bench strength a little.

“To a degree,” Rowntree agreed.

“We went with a 5/3 split, we just felt we needed to be a bit more loaded in the backline there.

“We’ll see what we do next week but you still have got to be brave, it’s working by bringing guys on, getting ahead of the curve.

“So we still wanted to do that on Friday night, albeit with one less forward coming onto the field.”

It was curious that, once again, Peter O’Mahony was one of the first players hauled off against the Ospreys and Rowntree insisted the Ireland captain is not dealing with any injury issues.

“He’s been great. He’s been training hard, he’s fit. I suppose it’s just tactically what we’ve been doing,” the coach said.

A 6pm kick-off on Saturday evening is more up Munster’s street than a 7.35 affair on a Friday night and there should be a bigger crowd at Thomond Park for the Warriors’ arrival.

They are 80 minutes from a home final against Leinster or the Bulls, both of whom will be arriving on the back of an intense 80-odd minutes at altitude and a scramble to get back across the equator.

So, it’s incumbent on the champions not to let their guard down.

“We want to do it for the fans who couldn’t make it to Cape Town and to Leinster [last season],” Rowntree said. “It’s important. You can feel the vibe of this place in knockout rugby.”