RASSIE ERASMUS ADMITTED he was satisfied with his side’s seven-try demolition of Treviso, but that he was keen to get stuck into bigger challenges that await in the next month.
Munster climbed to the top of the Pro12 with this win on the back of Leinster’s defeat the previous night, but starting on Friday next away to Glasgow Warriors, Erasmus is expecting a far tougher test.
Warriors are also one of the Munster’s pool rivals in the Champions Cup and they will be keen to lay down a marker and recover from their own surprise home defeat to Ospreys this weekend.
And with big challenges to come from Warriors and Leicester Tigers (twice) in the next three weeks Erasmus is keen to reintegrate his international contingent, while retaining his match-winning formula.
“Now we are going into big games so it’s it the old clichés the next few games are so important now,” said the province’s director of rugby.
“We have Glasgow before we go into a few games in Europe and Glasgow are one of European games as well so a lot of decision making around team selection now.
“Hopefully we get the boys involved in the Irish set up back injury free and we have to make clever decisions now around form and match fitness and obviously longevity over these next six, seven, eight or nine weeks over Christmas and into the new year.”
Both Ronan O’Mahony and Andrew Conway did their chances of European inclusion no harm at all with two tries each, while Darren O’Shea and Alex Wootton scored their first tries for the province, and Robin Copeland also dotted down.
Munster reported an almost clean bill of health after the game – a dead leg for Tommy O’Donnell was the sole concern – but another five points to the tally was the least they deserved.
“Happy with it is a good way of putting it but there was still enough errors out there,” said Erasmus.
“But then when you make so many changes and getting guys back and putting guys on and taking off a few guys, I guess you’ll get some stuff which isn’t too fluent, but overall I think satisfying.”
The42 is on Instagram! Tap the button below on your phone to follow us!
