The video of the DHL Stormers celebrating the fact they had clinched a home Vodacom United Rugby Championship final continues to be a preoccupation of the Irish media but Munster lock Jean Kleyn reckons it is nothing more than puff.
Kleyn, who started his senior provincial and franchise rugby career playing for Western Province and the Stormers, said he hadn’t watched the video of the Stormers celebrating his current team’s win over Leinster in the semifinal in Dublin but found it completely understandable that the Cape players should react like they did.
“I didn’t see it to be honest, I don’t look for those sorts of things, but obviously I did hear about it,” said Kleyn..
“Any team when seeing they have a home final would be delighted. If the roles were reversed, I am sure we would be delighted as well. It (the fuss) is all a lot of puff really. Any team getting a home final when they would have been thinking they’d be playing against Leinster in Dublin as an alternative to playing us on their home field would get excited.”
That should really have been the end of it, but the topic wasn’t dropped, with Kleyn then being asked what he thought of Stormers hooker Joseph Dweba saying on the video, which was taken during the Stormers’ private celebrations of their win over Connacht in a DHL Stadium hospitality suite, that his team would “f*** them up”.
Again Kleyn, who apart from playing senior provincial rugby out of the Cape when Allister Coetzee and Robbie Fleck were at the helm of the Stormers and WP also played two years for WP under-21 under the coaching of John Dobson, dead-batted the question.
“Again I think that everyone is reading too much into it,” when told that Stormers assistant coach Rito Hlungwani hadn’t censured Dweba when he went into a press conference at the start of the week.
“You aren’t exactly going to have a coach coming out and saying ‘Oh no, we are not doing that’. You can’t back down after that statement, but I haven’t seen it. All I can say is that we are very much up for the battle and we will see what happens on Saturday. We are certainly prepping to perform at the highest level.”
'ALL ABOUT BELIEF'
Munster have been on the road for most of the latter half of the season, with their fifth placed finish meaning they had to start the playoff phase away from home, while their last two URC league games were in South Africa against the Stormers and the Cell C Sharks.
But even before that Munster were on a finals footing due to them not being able to afford a loss if they wanted to make the top eight and qualify for both the playoffs and next season’s Heineken Champions Cup.
“It is all about belief. Graham (coach Graham Rowntree) has always been emphasising belief and that has developed over the course of the season. Obviously it was pretty dire to lose five of the first seven games but we kept belief in the process and we stuck to what the coaching team were coaching and envisaging.
“That got us winning games and when you start winning you start to believe even more in the process. We now have massive belief in each other, not just in the process and our game plan. We will all go out on Saturday to do our utmost best not only for the team, but also for our mates standing next to us. The spirit has galvanised during the season and we have been building it further every week.
“We have had a serious run of crucial away games towards the end of the season and winning those has served to further bring us all together,” he added.
Kleyn scoffed at a suggestion that after the win over Leinster, which was unexpected, being in the final means they are in bonus territory as it was unexpected.
“There is nothing bonus about being here. This is what we play towards, what we have been working towards over the last 48 weeks,” said Kleyn.
“Winning a semifinal means nothing to us in comparison to what we face on Saturday. Beating the reigning champions on their home turf in front of 55 000 people cannot be overshadowed by a victory over Leinster. That’s not the be all and end all. Munster is not just in existence to beat Leinster but to win championships.”