JACK CROWLEY SAYS that his strong start to the season has nothing to do with nailing down the Irish No.10 shirt for the autumn series, and that his sole focus is on helping Munster hit the ground running in the URC.
Crowley said it would be disingenuous to his teammates if his driving force was an international target rather than concentrating on helping Munster, who have won both their opening games, build on their bright start under new head coach Clayton McMillan.
Crowley, unlike his main rival for the Irish outhalf slot Sam Prendergast, has had a strong start to the season, landing the decisive drop goal and picking up the man of the match award as they edged out Cardiff 23-20 at Thomond Park on Saturday.
The 25-year old said his Ireland aspirations for the autumn are not a factor in his strong start to the season.
“If I’m being brutally honest, I don’t think it would be respectful to the group for that to be a driving factor for me. I don’t think it would be fair to the rest of the lads.
“My main focus is how I can best prepare the team and myself for the opponent that’s coming up this week. This week now it’s Edinburgh, how we can best prepare for that and how we can get the best out of ourselves, how I can get the best out of myself. If we start looking down the line then that’s where we will be able to deliver in performances. I don’t think it would be, for me anyway, placing my energy in the right areas.”
Advertisement
Crowley landed his third drop goal for Munster — taking his haul for his native province to 350 points in 73 games — when he extended their lead to 23-15 with four minutes left, and Munster didn’t get a bonus point; it proved a smart move as Cardiff got a late try.
Crowley celebrates his drop goal. Nick Elliott / INPHO
Nick Elliott / INPHO / INPHO
“It wasn’t really anything we discussed, it was just the situation we were in. We didn’t really have momentum in that passage of play and we’ll try and look at it and see how we can be better in those scenarios to find a way back into our game. It was just a scenario that came about and we took it and were able to fight another day I guess.”
And while there was obvious satisfaction in making the game safe, the thing for him is that they did enough to win, backing up their opening round victory away to Scarlets.
“I don’t know, I probably find it more satisfying to go and I think we all as a team here to go out and perform to the plan that we had hoped to.
“To be fair to Cardiff, I thought they were unbelievably physical, put us under a lot of pressure and probably didn’t allow us to play exactly the way we wanted to. Ultimately, it led us to a bit more of a scrappy game and we got there in the end. I think there’s definitely more satisfying performances hopefully to come.
Certainly as a collective we’d hoped to be a little bit more physical. We didn’t deliver to our own standards we felt in the game, so something as a group that we’ll be driving and hopefully deliver on further down the line.”
Edinburgh, whose game with Ulster fell victim to Storm Amy at the weekend, lost their opening round match when they were pipped at the death by Zebre in Parma.
Crowley was quick to point out that last season Edinburgh lost to Zebre before coming to Virgin Media Park in Cork the following week and winning 34-28, so he’s on his guard this time round.
Meanwhile, attack coach Mike Prendergast the extent of Craig Casey’s hamstring injury should become more apparent this week.
“There’s a hamstring injury there. He’s still doing a couple of tests on it. We’re hoping that it won’t be too long, hopefully in the next week or two and there’ll probably be a bit more clarity towards the end of the week, maybe around Thursday or so. So, we’re hoping to wait and see that we get a bit of good news there but as of now, nothing is clear or set in stone in terms of availability.”
Winger Shane Daly (HIA) and hooker Niall Scannell (hand laceration) will miss Friday’s game but there were a lot of positives in the injury update emerging from their HPC in Limerick with seven players — Edwin Edogbo, Tom Farrell, Mike Haley, Mikey Milne, John Ryan, Roman Salanoa and Andrew Smith — returning to full training this week and their availability for a return to action will be determined next week.
JJ Hanrahan’s position will be determined later this week as he continues to follow the return-to-play protocols, while winger Diarmuid Kilgallen is increasing his training load.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Close
16 Comments
This is YOUR comments community. Stay civil, stay constructive, stay on topic.
Please familiarise yourself with our comments policy
here
before taking part.
Crowley: Ireland selection not 'driving factor' for strong start to season
JACK CROWLEY SAYS that his strong start to the season has nothing to do with nailing down the Irish No.10 shirt for the autumn series, and that his sole focus is on helping Munster hit the ground running in the URC.
Crowley said it would be disingenuous to his teammates if his driving force was an international target rather than concentrating on helping Munster, who have won both their opening games, build on their bright start under new head coach Clayton McMillan.
Crowley, unlike his main rival for the Irish outhalf slot Sam Prendergast, has had a strong start to the season, landing the decisive drop goal and picking up the man of the match award as they edged out Cardiff 23-20 at Thomond Park on Saturday.
The 25-year old said his Ireland aspirations for the autumn are not a factor in his strong start to the season.
“If I’m being brutally honest, I don’t think it would be respectful to the group for that to be a driving factor for me. I don’t think it would be fair to the rest of the lads.
“My main focus is how I can best prepare the team and myself for the opponent that’s coming up this week. This week now it’s Edinburgh, how we can best prepare for that and how we can get the best out of ourselves, how I can get the best out of myself. If we start looking down the line then that’s where we will be able to deliver in performances. I don’t think it would be, for me anyway, placing my energy in the right areas.”
Crowley landed his third drop goal for Munster — taking his haul for his native province to 350 points in 73 games — when he extended their lead to 23-15 with four minutes left, and Munster didn’t get a bonus point; it proved a smart move as Cardiff got a late try.
“It wasn’t really anything we discussed, it was just the situation we were in. We didn’t really have momentum in that passage of play and we’ll try and look at it and see how we can be better in those scenarios to find a way back into our game. It was just a scenario that came about and we took it and were able to fight another day I guess.”
And while there was obvious satisfaction in making the game safe, the thing for him is that they did enough to win, backing up their opening round victory away to Scarlets.
“I don’t know, I probably find it more satisfying to go and I think we all as a team here to go out and perform to the plan that we had hoped to.
“To be fair to Cardiff, I thought they were unbelievably physical, put us under a lot of pressure and probably didn’t allow us to play exactly the way we wanted to. Ultimately, it led us to a bit more of a scrappy game and we got there in the end. I think there’s definitely more satisfying performances hopefully to come.
Edinburgh, whose game with Ulster fell victim to Storm Amy at the weekend, lost their opening round match when they were pipped at the death by Zebre in Parma.
Crowley was quick to point out that last season Edinburgh lost to Zebre before coming to Virgin Media Park in Cork the following week and winning 34-28, so he’s on his guard this time round.
Meanwhile, attack coach Mike Prendergast the extent of Craig Casey’s hamstring injury should become more apparent this week.
“There’s a hamstring injury there. He’s still doing a couple of tests on it. We’re hoping that it won’t be too long, hopefully in the next week or two and there’ll probably be a bit more clarity towards the end of the week, maybe around Thursday or so. So, we’re hoping to wait and see that we get a bit of good news there but as of now, nothing is clear or set in stone in terms of availability.”
Winger Shane Daly (HIA) and hooker Niall Scannell (hand laceration) will miss Friday’s game but there were a lot of positives in the injury update emerging from their HPC in Limerick with seven players — Edwin Edogbo, Tom Farrell, Mike Haley, Mikey Milne, John Ryan, Roman Salanoa and Andrew Smith — returning to full training this week and their availability for a return to action will be determined next week.
JJ Hanrahan’s position will be determined later this week as he continues to follow the return-to-play protocols, while winger Diarmuid Kilgallen is increasing his training load.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
In form jack crowley Munster Rugby