Munster ready for Shark attack

AS big as it gets. That’s the way Munster coach Declan Kidney is approaching tomorrow evening’s opening Heineken Cup clash of the season with high-flying Sale, the current leaders of England’s Guinness Premiership and a team blessed with a whole raft of international players including as many as six Lions.

Munster yesterday released a panel of 28 from which the final 22 will be announced on arrival in Manchester early this afternoon and it includes Peter Stringer, who has battled his way back to fitness after a knee injury that initially looked likely to sideline him for at least another two weeks.

Provided there were no repercussions after yesterday’s final training session in heavy rain and on a heavy Musgrave Park pitch, Stringer will start tomorrow’s game with Tomas O’Leary, his highly impressive replacement in the big win over Leinster, reverting to the bench. Anthony Horgan, who was out of action for the past month, also took a full part yesterday and provided he came through without any further damage to his calf, is likely to line out on the left wing to the exclusion of the recently arrived South African Anthon Pitout.

“All credit to Peter for recovering from what was a pretty bad knock on his knee,” Kidney said. “He’s worked really hard and shown his professionalism and put himself back in contention.

“To have somebody of that experience in the squad is a huge help for a match like this. He hasn’t had a whole lot of game time recently and we’ll have to factor that into our calculations.

“It’s very tight for Anthony Horgan, he’s done a bit of light training. While we have a good squad, there are items outside our control and we’ll just have to see how they react to the training session.”

Even though Paul O’Connell and Mike Mullins are still out injured, the Munster squad is still very strong all-round and Kidney won’t have an easy task deciding on his starting line-up, especially in the highly competitive back row as well as the centre.

However, Kidney sees similar difficulties in almost every position: “This is due to recruitment and younger players putting up their hands and everybody with the interest and the desire to go forward.”

As for the opposition awaiting him at Edgeley Road, Kidney emphasised: “You don’t get to the top of the Premiership in England without being a top-class side. The minute the draw was made, we knew we had got one of the toughest in the whole competition.

“Sale won the Parker Pen last year and were in the play-offs in the English League. You only have to look down the media guide to see the strength in depth in their squad ... six Lions, Tongan, French, Welsh, Samoan internationals and that’s a lot of experience to have in your side.

“You always tinker a bit but we just have to do what we can do. If their back three get the ball in space, we know we’ll pay for it just like every other side so we have to avoid that happening. I think they have a real chance of doing very well in Europe because of the experience they have.

“For us, this is huge, a vital game, at this stage of the season, it’s as big as it gets.”

Kidney is philosophical about his side not having a game last week, pointing out it’s “12 days since we played Leinster. We’ve worked our way through those days and while players like playing regularly, you can pick up knocks as well, so we deal with it because it is what it is.

“As for our recent form, we had a defeat against Glasgow and didn’t get too upset about it and we had a win over Leinster and didn’t get too excited about it. Small things can change things and the way rugby is, you can go from what can be seen as a sizeable win to a sizeable loss very quickly.”

Anthony Foley leads his men into his 11th European Cup campaign and makes his 68th appearance in the competition. He seems as enthusiastic now as he was in the mid-90s on the way to becoming one of the most influential players in the Irish game.

“I think everybody is excited every season going into the kind of competition that you can’t wait to get into,” Foley enthused. “We’re probably fortunate to play on Friday night, a day before everybody else, so we’re really looking forward to this.”

MUNSTER squad: F Roche, J Hayes, M Horan, F Pucciarello, F Sheahan, J Flannery, T Hogan, D O’Callaghan, M O’Driscoll, D Wallace, A Foley, D Leamy, A Quinlan, S Keogh; P Stringer, T O’Leary, R O’Gara, P Burke, J Manning, A Pitout, A Horgan, T Halstead, R Henderson, G Connolly, B Murphy, J Kelly, I Dowling, S Payne.