Racing 92 star Donnacha Ryan hails punishing training regime for Champions Cup semi-final win over Munster

Sport360 staff 08:23 23/04/2018
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  • Donnacha Ryan said Racing 92 reaped the rewards of a punishing training regime in the lead-up to their 27-22 Champions Cup semi-final victory over his former side Munster in Bordeaux.

    Ryan played a pivotal role in the tight five as Racing qualified for their second European decider in three years, booking a date with Leinster in Bilbao on May 12.

    The Tipperary-born lock was a member of Munster’s extended squad for their 2008 title success, but the Irish province have now fallen at the penultimate hurdle six times since 2009.

    Explaining that the Racing squad had done extra training to cope with the humidity in Bordeaux and Munster’s high fitness levels, Ryan said: “We literally put the foot to the floor, put a lot of effort in, trained the last four days in a row. With Munster’s fitness, they are able to up the tempo, and small margins in the end did it for us today. We took our chances early on and put them under pressure.

    “I’m bitterly disappointed for the (Munster) lads. I know how much it means to them. It’s going to be a tough task in a few weeks’ time (against Leinster). We are going to have our work cut out for us. Obviously they are going to be massive favourites – they haven’t lost a game in Europe all season.”

    Racing had Munster rattled thanks to a blistering three-try salvo inside 21 minutes as Teddy Thomas bagged a brace and unselfishly set up captain Maxime Machenaud for the third. Ace goal-kicker Machenaud topped up his tally to 17 points as the French side, who led 24-3 at half-time, forged 24 points ahead.

    Munster launched a fightback in the final quarter, producing tries from replacements Simon Zebo and Rhys Marshall, and a final-play score from Andrew Conway, but it was too little, too late.

    Johann van Graan and his Munster side still have the PRO14 trophy to aim for at the end of the South African’s first season in charge, but the head coach could not hide his disappointment at Sunday’s result.

    “Very glad we came to this stage but it’s a very tough one to take,” he said. “For Munster to get to the semi-final again, it’s a massive achievement but we wanted to go one step better this year and unfortunately it wasn’t to be. We wish Leinster and Racing all the best for the final.

    “Our defence has been incredible all year but you need to produce on the day and unfortunately we didn’t have a good start and we came up maybe one or two minutes short (in the end).

    “It’s Rugby, it’s life, we’ll take it on the chin and hopefully we’ll be back this year. We had a plan (on Sunday), we believed in our plan but we gave them too much of a head-start.”

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