NEW IRELAND CAPTAIN Peter O’Mahony picked up an injury during Munster’s Champions Cup defeat to Northampton at Thomond Park, just 13 days before the Six Nations gets underway.
There was also concern for back row Tom Ahern, who is due to link up with Ireland to train with Andy Farrell’s squad next week. The Waterford man suffered a head injury in an incident that resulted in Northampton hooker Curtis Langdon being red-carded.
O’Mahony was replaced in the 66th minute and while he didn’t appear to be in severe pain, Ireland boss Farrell will be waiting for an update on his new skipper tomorrow, with the national squad gathering in Dublin on Monday.
“Pete, we’ll get an injury report tomorrow,” said Munster head coach Graham Rowntree after his team’s 26-23 defeat, without confirming the nature of the injury.
“Pete’s got a couple of little bangs there, we’ll see what tomorrow brings.”
The Munster boss confirmed that 23-year-old Ahern will stay in hospital in Limerick tonight after his head injury. The lock was taken off the pitch on a cart late in the first half.
“Tom, we’ll see tomorrow, he’s going to spend the night in hospital,” said Rowntree.
“We’ll get a report on him tomorrow.”
Scrum-half Conor Murray, who was also named in Ireland’s Six Nations squad, was ruled out of the game beforehand due to illness, with Paddy Patterson coming into the number 21 shirt in his place.
Rowntree was frustrated by Munster’s inability to see out a win in Limerick this evening, particularly after leading 15-7 at the break.
His men have qualified for the round of 16 but they won just one of their four Pool 3 games and will face a trip away from home in the first knock-out round.
The Munster head coach said he and his players had discussed how it wasn’t just going to just happen for them after Langdon’s red card in the closing stages of the opening half.
But the 14-man Saints clung onto Munster throughout the second and then pounced for a 70th-minute winning try through Sam Graham from a close-range maul.
“Second half, we came out and immediately gave some soft penalties away,” said Rowntree.
“And then we were doing things that we had spoken about not doing with the ball - running when we meant to kick and kicking when we meant to run. The game just got away from us a bit, we were playing into the wind and they grew a leg, didn’t they?
“We just lost our way.”
Munster have been poor at finishing games out in recent times, fading in the final quarter, but Rowntree is more concerned about how they’ve been playing in wet weather.
The southern province were excellent in good conditions in Toulon last weekend but they have struggled in the rain in defeats to Connacht, Leinster, and now Northampton, as well as drawing with Bayonne.
“We have got to be better at managing the conditions,” said Rowntree.
“That’s been proven over the last few weeks. A week ago we were in the sun, high ball in play and look at the conditions today against 14 men in the second half and we just lost our way, what we were doing with the ball, we lost our way.
“I’ve got nothing more technical than that at the moment.”
Munster captain Tadhg Beirne said he and his players spoke about the issues that were holding them back in the second half but they couldn’t cut them out of their game quickly enough.
“We spoke in those huddles about how we were making a lot of errors and giving away penalties,” said Beirne.
“I spoke before the game about not backing up penalties, and when we got down to the last quarter that’s what we were doing, giving them ins constantly and turning over the ball.
“We were trying to come together and talk about being clear and smarter with the ball, but as Wig said we still have a bit to learn about managing those conditions better. It’s not just been today, it’s been Connacht, Exeter, Leinster on Stephen’s Day.
“They’re all games where conditions were against us and we just didn’t play the conditions well enough. We seriously need to sit down and actually properly learn from those, because we don’t want to be sat here saying the same thing again.”
