Bath backed for Champions Cup challenge by Munster head coach

Bath Rugby will “definitely be up there” challenging for the Investec Champions Cup this season, according to Munster Rugby head coach Clayton McMillan.

Bath Rugby have been praised by Clayton McMillan, head coach of their Investec Champions Cup Round 1 opponents Munster, who were beaten 40-14 at The Rec | Photo © Richard Briggs

The New Zealander cut a dejected figure at his post-match press conference at The Rec on Saturday 6th December as he reflected on the Irish side’s 40-14 mauling by the Blue, Black & White in the Round 1 fixture in Europe’s premier competition.

But McMillan – who took over at Munster this summer – acknowledged that his team came up against an impressive home unit.

McMillan told the press: “Disappointed. We feel like we’re a better team than what we showed, especially in the first 15, 20 minutes against a good quality side. If you give them that sort of margin, it’s always going to be tough to come back.

“I think the execution [was particularly disappointing]. We probably created a little bit of early territory pressure but we lost a few line-outs and that sort of let the pressure off and they were good enough to kettle us.

“They’re Premiership winners last year and they’ve hit the ground running this year, got an impressive squad, deep squad, and tough to beat at home. They’ll definitely be up there [challenging for the Champions Cup].

“They were incredibly accurate with their kicks.

“We got our fair share of scraps and they got some of these.

“When you’re at 28-0 [up, as Bath were inside 19 minutes][, there’s not a lot of need to deviate too far away from the kicking game and, when they were going to get some of them back and lose a few, it probably wasn’t going to be as detrimental if the game had been a little bit tighter. We never really forced them to have to change the game.

“It would’ve been interesting if it had been a little bit closer, to see if they would’ve persevered with it.

“There were positives [for Munster]. That’s one of the top teams in Europe. We kept the scoreboard pretty even for 60-odd minutes. We don’t want to pat ourselves on the back for that because it’s an 80-minute game.

“But there are some positives and we’ll need to find some gains pretty quickly at home [to Gloucester Rugby in Round 2] next week [Saturday 13th December].

“In regards to our scrum, I thought it was significantly better than what it was last week [in a home defeat by DHL Stormers in the United Rugby Championship on Saturday 29th November], so there was another positive for us, but you’ve got to win your set-piece, play the game at the right part of the field.

“You’ve got to be disciplined and you’ve got to convert the opportunities, the limited ones, you get.”

McMillan – who experienced success with New Zealand’s Chiefs in Super Rugby before switching to Ireland – had to make changes to Munster’s starting XV in the lead up to kick-off at The Rec, with Michael Milne and Jean Kleyn withdrawing.

But he said: “There were definitely disruptions, but I would be reluctant to use those as a reason for what you saw in the first 20 minutes.

“At the end of the day, we just weren’t where we needed to be, accuracy-wise, I think, in the first 20 minutes and paid a heavy every price, it’s as simple as that.

“I thought Jeremy [Loughman, who came in for Milne] did a great job at loosehead against a powerful scrum.

“And [replacement] Josh [Wycherley] came in pretty cold but still did his job.

“We had about 14 minutes of poor rugby last weekend [against Stormers], we paid a heavy price.

“This week we’re on the road and we played against a quality side and again paid the price for our inaccuracies.

“But I saw it tonight, I’ve seen it last week and I’ve seen it in the other six games that we played beforehand that this is a team that don’t enjoy losing. They’re fighters.”