Munster branded 'rudderless' in first ever defeat to Stormers

Graham Rowntree’s Munster have been described as ‘rudderless’ following their first ever defeat to the Stormers.

The DHL Stormers beat Munster 34-19 in Cape Town, a win which sees them move off the bottom of the URC table.

It was Munster’s first ever loss to the South African franchise, the Irisi province having won all four of the prior encounters between the sides up until Saturday’s face-off. In fact the men in red had been unbeaten in their last nine Championship fixtures against South African opponents since their defeat to the Lions in Johannesburg in March 2022.

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RTE panellists Donncha O’Callaghan and Bernard Jackman ran the rule over the performance after what was at times a chaotic and error-strewn display.

“It was a frantic game of rugby. It was the closest thing to a Baabaas [Barbarians] training session on a Thursday,” said O’Callaghan. “It was all over the place in terms of structure.

“I’d say the coaches will be incredibly annoyed because there were so many opportunities, so much stuff that if you go back and review and say ‘if’, ‘if we made these passes’ but the big areas are… you are going nowhere in professional rugby if you haven’t got a set-piece.

“The inaccuracies and the individual errors were off the charts.”

Jackman added: “I felt they got a little bit rudderless, a little bit loose and that’s been symptomatic of how they’ve been playing.”

Following the final whistle head coach Rowntree gave his initial reaction to the game, in which it was put to him that Munster made too many errors: “Fact. We just killed ourselves there. We were in that game at halftime and [in] the second half we came out, discipline was poor, they scored a try there. We have an opportunity to nail them down there with our lineout. We couldn’t do it.

“Then we start giving away penalties in the scrum and we are chasing the game.

“I said to the lads in there, we’ve got to stick together now and be strong. We’ll own up to the stuff we’re not doing.

“It’s a hugely frustrated and down dressing room, for good reason. But I’m not having us fall apart. We’ve got a huge game next week now, but we’ve got to get better.”