Injury woes pile pressure on Munster

Some 29 years have elapsed since Connacht last beat Munster at Thomond Park. In that space of time, they have been unlucky on a few occasions, on others they returned west on the back of one or two hammerings. 

Either way, they have never undertaken the task as leaders of a tournament as significant as the Guinness Pro 12, and that’s just what they will be doing on Saturday afternoon next when they attempt to eradicate a particularly unhappy statistic from the record book.

Munster coach Anthony Foley needs no reminding of the impressive manner in which Pat Lam’s team have hit the ground running, winning six of their seven league outings to date and with two victories in the European Challenge Cup also to their credit. It certainly doesn’t help Munster’s prospects that they have a number of injury concerns, with Peter O’Mahony and Duncan Casey in the early days of recuperation from major knee and quad operations and Mike Sherry another three or four weeks away from successfully rehabbing a damaged knee.

“We are light enough at hooker, at the moment,” Foley admitted. “Obviously we have Niall Scannell and Kevin O’Byrne played the B&I Cup game and got through that. We had Eddie Rossiter down from Old Belvedere who used to play with UL Bohs, covering off the sub spot in the B&I Cup game. Mike Sherry hasn’t trained but has done a bit of modified running, and we just want to see where he is at by the end of the week.”

Suggestions that Australian World Cup captain Stephen Moore would be joining Munster were rubbished by Foley, who insisted: “There isn’t anything in that. It has happened to us in the past around the media as well, where names are thrown out. Everything is done behind closed doors. We are not going to talk about it in public anyway because it isn’t worth our while.”

There has been a deal of annoyance among Munster supporters that should Rob Henshaw leave Connacht at the end of the season, that Leinster was his only port of call, according to large chunks of the media. Foley wasn’t for joining the speculation though.

“I imagine there would be a lot of clubs that would love a player of his capabilities in their squad,” he commented. “We wouldn’t be saying no. It is probably not appropriate to talk about a player that we are probably going to face at the weekend in the media on a Tuesday. So I will leave it there. He is an international player so he has got to make his own decisions.

“We are probably going to be playing against him at the weekend so as I said, I don’t really want to talk about one of Pat Lam’s players.”

Scrum-half Conor Murray is also a doubtful starter for the Connacht game.

“He is bruised, he got a stamp on the foot in the Treviso game so it was prudent that he didn’t run today,” Foley explained. “Anybody who doesn’t train on the Tuesday would be a doubt for the weekend. It’s about preparation and if you’re not properly prepared, you are liable to incur more injuries, so we want fellas to do a full week’s work before we play them.”

Tomás O’Leary is the likely replacement should Murray miss out, and Foley is delighted to have a player of his experience and class for a game that he expects will fully extend his squad.

“Connacht were excellent last season, they had a run in Europe as well and we probably got a taste of it in pre-season and they gave us a good trimming in Thomond Park,” he stated. “From there, they’ve done really well in the Pro12 and they’ve won their two European games. They’re going really well. With the players they have, they’re playing super rugby and they’re dangerous.”

Foley is waiting for the directors of the Top 14 in France, the English Premiership and the Pro 12 to arrange his side’s postponed European Champions Cup game against Stade Francais. He will accept whatever date they come up although he holds strong views on the ultimate decision.

“I think a midweek match would be unfair to both sides, it needs to be a weekend,” he stressed. “Also, everybody loves round six of the European Cup because of the permutations. It’s one of the traditions of the competition and it would be slightly unfair on other teams who’d be looking at it and unfair on supporters and people around the game.”