MUNSTER DIRECTOR OF rugby Rassie Erasmus said he expects a full-blown challenge from Racing 92 at the weekend even though Ronan O’Gara’s men are already out of the Champions Cup.
But Erasmus warned that even if Racing field a second string side they are capable of winning in Paris on Saturday and scuttling Munster’s hopes of making the quarter-finals for the first time in three seasons.
Racing, last year’s Top 14 champions, are currently languishing in eighth in the French championship and in danger of not making the play-off spots. Having lost all three European games, they are unlikely to have an appetite for their remaining pool fixtures.
“I have my mind wandering a bit on that”, said Erasmus. “I am just going to confuse myself to work out what they will be thinking for this game, you just don’t know.
“If you look at their squad depth and obviously their budget and player budget and the stature of their club and where they finished last year in both competitions, they could field a great team.
“And you wouldn’t know if they filled a second team with those guys that they aren’t actually better. They may be younger but are just potentially as good.
“I started wandering down that line of thought, thinking about it, but then I thought what would it help? We can only control how well we train and play and I’m sure playing there, whatever team they put out, it is going to be a massive challenge for us.”
Erasmus will be without winger Darren Sweetnam, who is out for six weeks, and may also have to plan without flanker Tommy O’Donnell, who picked up an ankle injury in the 16-9 win over Connacht at the weekend, although it won’t be known until later in the week if the Tipperary native will be fit.
“I would say really it’s 50-50. I wouldn’t be overly positive, but he is a tough guy. He is one of the important guys in the team, like all of the other guys, but he is a specialist openside flanker. We are playing a team that is great at that area of the game so we will give him all of the chances he needs. But also not be stupid.”
Sweetnam, who had started every match until he was injured in the win over Leinster on St Stephen’s Day, will be out until February but Erasmus expects him to come back stronger.
“He is not a guy that knows injuries a lot. He doesn’t have the wealth of experience of a lot of injuries, not just because of his age, but because of the time he has played rugby.
Erasmus said the former Cork hurler “seldom misses trainings. But luckily he is young and he has got lots of time to recover.”
Erasmus also welcomed the contract extension which was finally confirmed on Monday morning for South African Jaco Taute, who will now stay until June at least having been brought in as cover for former All Black Francis Saili.
“We are all glad to see that he has extended the loan agreement until June. Jaco has been a centre for most of his career but he has played ninety to a hundred first-class games at full-back.
“I coached him as a full-back and when we look at our young centres coming through — a guy like Dan (Goggin) who performed really well on Saturday, Sam Arnold is still there and Rory (Scannell) is doing well — but Rory is covering ten for us if one of Ian Keatley or one of those guys go down and then a centre spot is open again.
“And Rory can’t play every game for us at centre because it is still a long season and we will lose some guys to international duties and then you have the injuries to Alex Wootton and Darren Sweetnam in the back three where Jaco also covers.
“We just wanted to make sure about that before we finalised everything and we looked at the amount of minutes the foreign players have played combined and it is isn’t even 2,000. We wouldn’t want to block a young Irish guy coming through and that was the only reason we made sure everything was aligned there and with Western Province and the IRFU.”
