Fiona Hayes' Munster team won all three of their round robin matches, finishing five points clear of fellow finalists Leinster at the top of the table ©INPHO/Bryan Keane
Noticing ‘a few upset heads’ in the post-match huddle, Fiona Hayes will use that frustration in a positive manner this week as Munster prepare for a mouth-watering final showdown with Leinster.
The Munster Women looked home and hosed against Connacht when Alana McInerney completed her brace on the hour mark, but the westerners made the table toppers sweat late on with a three-try fightback that delighted the home crowd.
Hayes’ charges, who had booked their final place last week, still prevailed 29-24 at Dexcom Stadium, yet there was obvious disappointment for the Reds with how the final quarter panned out.
“A little bit of disappointment in that second half performance,” admitted the Munster head coach. “There were a few upset heads in the circle afterwards, which kind of shows the character of the group as well.
“Look, we came here with a job to do, and it was get that win, and it’s three out of four so we’ve got to get them ready now for next weekend.”
Munster’s consistent form across the Vodafone Women’s Interprovincial Championship’s first three match days saw them pocket the maximum haul of 15 points, with 15 tries scored and an average of 30 points per game.
Turning around into a strong wind, the tough conditions in Galway played their part in Munster losing their grip on a 29-5 lead. Hayes also praised Connacht for how they used the wind to their advantage and had some notable set-piece success.
“I thought Connacht were exceptional in the second half, in particular around game management and where to kick the ball. They had the wind with them, and it was something that we probably lacked a little bit.
“The players will take that, they’ll look after it, and set-piece probably fell a little bit as well, which is disappointing. But we’ll go after it all week, we have two good days of training ahead.
“Sometimes I think it’s better for a bunch to come off, they’ve got the win but to still come off upset because they know there’s a lot more in them. It’s exciting times for them.”
Hayes’ passion for rugby pours out of her, and 2024 has certainly been a big year in her coaching career with the Energia All-Ireland League and Cup double with UL Bohemian, which earned her the Women’s Division Coach of the Year award, and her appointment as Munster boss.
The Limerick native was assistant coach for Munster’s last two Interprovincial campaigns, supporting her 2013 Grand Slam-winning team-mate, Niamh Briggs, and has the knowledge of what worked and what did not work during last season’s four-match series.
Under Briggs, Munster retained the Interprovincial title in January 2023 with a straight three group victories-out-of-three, but last year’s reintrodution of the final worked to Leinster’s benefit as they beat Munster twice to bring the trophy back east.
Summing up how much she loves her head coach role, and how important it is to get the balance right across the four weeks, Hayes told TG4: “I absolutely adore it, and I have such a great bunch of girls out there. We’ve such a close-knit family, and that’s what I love about it.
“‘Derv’ (Deirbhile Nic a Bháird, who is coming back from an ACL injury) gave the jerseys out to the girls this week, it was brilliant.
“The girls enjoy their rugby, they’re upset because there were probably uncharacteristic errors but I trust the bunch enough to know that the next game they’ll be looking at that and constantly trying to make themselves better.
“So it’s nothing I do, it’s themselves that control that. This third week, we found training, especially that first day back, trying to get up after that good win against Leinster, so that was an area we had to look at.
“We knew it was coming and I thought the girls were exceptional in that first half. We’ll go over a few areas, especially defence.
“We were good in the first half, but they’ll be disappointed with a few areas so we’ll look over that, but nothing too intense for the week.”
Meanwhile, Munster’s try-scoring captain Chloe Pearse knows that only a complete 80-minute performance will do against Leinster at Kingspan Stadium next Saturday (kick-off 4.15pm – live on TG4/BBC iPlayer/BBC Sport website). Tickets are available to buy here.
Their 32-21 defeat of Leinster in Cork certainly gives Pearse and her team-mates plenty of confidence heading in the final. Despite some performance dips at times during the Ulster and Connacht games, Hayes’ side know how to finish on the right side of the result.
“”I suppose the big thing is how do we recover, how do we fix that (performance) for next week, and make sure we put in a full 80-minute performance,” said Pearse.
“Because I’m sure it will be an 80-minute battle (in the final), and 40 minutes won’t be good enough. It was a good start from us, but we still felt in the first half that we left a couple of scores behind us.
“We were a little bit frustrated to concede at the end (of the first half to Connacht), and I felt we could have had another two (tries) going into the second half because we knew the wind was incredibly strong.
“It’s hard to kick out of it because that wind was incredibly strong. It’s just our error count that kind of let us down really. We leaked a lot of penalties and then we just let them back into the game.
“We went away from what we were good at, too many bodies into rucks and then we couldn’t get line speed on as a result of that.”
Looking forward to the decider in Belfast and going up against Leinster again, she added: “I think personally I would prefer to have beaten a team rather than going in having never beaten them, when you go into a final.
“It doesn’t really matter, anything can happen on finals day. If you don’t show up, another team will win, so we just have to make sure we come fully prepared next Saturday.”
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