MUNSTER WILL BE boosted by the return of some of their Ireland international contingent for Sunday’s visit to the Dragons in the URC.
Graham Rowntree’s side will be looking to bounce back from their opening-round defeat away to Cardiff and the availability of their front-liners is welcome.
Keith Earls, Joey Carbery, Conor Murray, Craig Casey, Jeremy Loughman, Tadhg Beirne, and captain Peter O’Mahony are all available for selection again after touring New Zealand during the summer, although it remains to be seen how many of them Rowntree calls on.
Munster will definitely be without the 10 players who have been included in the Emerging Ireland squad that flies out to South Africa on Sunday.
Thomas Ahern, Diarmuid Barron, Jack Crowley, Shane Daly, Antoine Frisch, John Hodnett, Alex Kendellen, Calvin Nash, Roman Salanoa, and Josh Wycherley have all been included for that tour, leaving Munster without a good chunk of their squad.
All 10 of those players featured against Cardiff last weekend as Munster lost 20-13.
With Salanoa heading away, the return to full training of experienced tighthead prop Stephen Archer is timely, while Munster are also hoping that back three players Simon Zebo and Mike Haley will be passed fit to face the Dragons.
Rory Scannell is a doubt after suffering a facial injury during the warm-up before the Cardiff game, while Gavin Coombes [groin], Andrew Conway [knee], RG Snyman [knee], and Jack Daly [knee] all remain sidelined.
Whatever way selection goes for this weekend, Rowntree and his coaching staff will be looking for a much-improved performance after an error-strewn, stuttering first outing of the season.
“We understand as a group that there are areas individually we all need to work on and sharpen up on,” said Munster forwards coach Andi Kyriacou today.
“That’ll come the more we play together. We’ll get our timings together and we’ll get that feel of what players will do instinctively as well, and how we can support that. That’ll definitely add to more accuracy around our catch-pass.
“In terms of the team, it’s going to take some time for us to bed these things in and the great thing about it is we have a nice long week to put right some of those things, work on it, keep improving, so our performance keeps improving at the weekend.”
Kyriacou said it was “very pleasing” that Munster came away from Cardiff with a losing bonus point when they could have let that slip, while he insisted there were other positives last weekend.
“The endeavour, the intent with some of our carries, and some of our clearouts on our side of the ball, our score-zone attack was excellent in terms of our pick-and-go stuff. The lineout operated well.
“Look, we were pleased in terms of certain aspects of it and the bits we need to brush up on we’ve addressed and discussed already. We’re in a good spot and are looking forward to pushing on.”
