Gaffney wants Williams to extend contract

MUNSTER hope to sign captain Jim Williams for another season. In the aftermath of Sunday’s Heineken Cup semi-final defeat to Wasps, it was suggested 35-year-old Williams was ready to either retire or move on to Japan.

However, coach Alan Gaffney was hopeful Williams might extend his contract for another season.

“There are some issues that complicate the situation, like how many overseas players we have in the squad, but my gut reaction is that I would like Jim to remain with the squad and the players feel the same.

“He may be 35 but has been to the forefront of every game we played in this season and there was nothing different on Sunday. I thought he had an exceptional game. He is the ultimate professional, looks after himself very well and can go on for a couple of more years yet.”

Gaffney confirmed Dominic Crotty has retired and is likely to be followed into retirement (for medical reasons) by Jason Jones-Hughes. “Simon Kerr goes back to Australia at the end of the season so we have a few adjustments to make to the squad.”

But Gaffney confirmed all the principal players would be available again next season. “The only main player outstanding is Jim and we’ll be sitting down to talk with him in the very near future and work out something.”

It’s unlikely that Ronan O’Gara will play any further part in Munster’s season, after sustaining a hamstring injury at the weekend, but he should be ready to join up with Ireland for their summer tour to South Africa.

Gaffney said the extent of the injury wasn’t yet known but added; “I expect he will be well recovered in time for Ireland’s tour. He will be assessed this week but I don’t think it’s a really serious tear.”

Frankie Sheahan has vowed Munster will bounce back from their latest Heineken Cup disappointment.

“I don’t think today is the day to answer how we’ll do it but it will be done. We have had more than our share of disappointments in the past few seasons but we’re still up there challenging for trophies and one of these days it’s bound to come right for us.

“We’ll have to lick our wounds for this season, re-group, and it might be tough and hard to look on the competition in the same light next season, but we’ll have to do it and get on with life, keep our challenge going.

“This is still a very special squad; nothing changed by losing to Wasps. We’ve a great bunch of guys in the squad and a great coaching team, the likes of Alan Gaffney, Brian Hickey and more.

“We’ll get together to re-group in the next 36 hours or so, sit down, talk it through, analyse our strengths and weaknesses, but I have no doubt about the ability in this province to put another loss behind us.

“I thought, personally, that this was the year but we’re obviously not good enough yet to win a Heineken Cup. I don’t think we can complain with the final result on the run of play but it would still have been nice to hang in there and grind out a result.

“It was a tough game, no quarter asked for or given, but we let in a couple of soft tries again. We got to a stage where we were ten points up and it was very disappointing that we couldn’t close the game down.

“We have the experience at this stage and should have been able to put them away, particularly because our lead came so quickly.

“We had a couple of players sin-binned and that didn’t help but we really have to look ourselves and figure out where it all went wrong.”