MUNSTER HEAD COACH Johann van Graan has refused to comment if they are interested in bringing the province’s top try scorer Simon Zebo back from France.
With Zebo set to leave Racing 92 at the end of the season, van Graan was asked on eir Sport after their win 28-10 win over Scarlets if he was keen to have him back with Munster.
“Zeebs is a brilliant player and we wish him the very best,” said van Graan.
“Look, I’m not going to speak about signing players on live tv. We will just focus on what we have done in this match.”
On Tuesday, at Munster’s weekly press conference, a Munster official intervened when a question was put to senior coach Stephen Larkham about the possibility of Zebo returning and said they would not be commenting further as van Graan had dealt with the matter previously.
Zebo scored 60 tries in 144 appearances for Munster before leaving for Paris almost three years ago. Zebo, who will be 31 next Tuesday, won the last of his 35 Irish caps on the summer tour to Japan in 2017.
Meanwhile, van Graan said he is waiting for an update on flanker Fineen Wycherley who was stretchered off in the opening half with an injury which led to the game being held up for eight minutes.
“He has gone to hospital, we hope it will be good. We just spoke inside there (in the dressing room) that this game of ours is a beautiful game but guys do get injured and we believe that he is going to be good but we have nothing further at this stage,” he added.
Meanwhile, Joey Carbery produced 60 minutes of top class rugby to show he has lost none of his touch and Munster will now be hoping his injury nightmare is firmly behind him.
“It was brilliant. Obviously, conditions weren’t great today but we are delighted to come out with a win. We are using this as another step towards the final.
“I’m so glad to be back out there and it was so nice to get 60 minutes and get back into the flow of things,” said Carbery, who kicked four from four.
“No matter the conditions you just go back to your technique and just try and do what you always do. That’s what I did and I was happy to see them go over.”
The key moment of the game was a break from Carbery from inside his own half to set up a try for Shane Daly and the out-half said he just acted on instinct when he collected a clearance from Scarlets scrum-half Dane Blacker.
“I suppose it just happens so quickly you don’t even notice it. You just kind of back all your training and stuff before and you just let it go. It was nice to get the ball back in my hands,” he added.
