Gaffney sticks to his guns, refusing to rise to Jones’ remarks

MUNSTER coach Alan Gaffney insisted that his side will play their own brand of rugby despite goading from his Neath counterpart Lyn Jones.

Jones launched an astonishing attack on Munster in advance of today’s Celtic League clash at the Gnoll.

On the club website this week, Jones accused Munster of being boring and effectively branded prop forward John Hayes a cheat.

On Munster’s style of play he said: “They can play entertaining football but do not play until they are in front. They proved that in Edinburgh recently when they bored the home side into submission.”

“Very interesting,” said Gaffney, “but I will not get into a war of words with their coach. I won’t allow myself to respond to something like that other than to say we will play as we see fit in a bid to win the match. Munster could hardly be accused of boring anyone over the last four or five seasons.”

Jones clearly intends to bring what he described as irregularities in Hayes’ play to the attention of referee Chris White.

He commented: “We need John Hayes to come to Neath and scrummage squarely. If he is going to start coming across the scrum then it will cause all sorts of problems.

“He is so tall that opposite loose heads can get under him and put him in trouble. Duncan Jones was doing pretty much the same thing to the guy in Ulster and was unlucky to be shown a yellow card.

All we are asking is for sides like Munster to scrummage straight when they face us.”

Gaffney responded to those comments when he said: “I’m not prepared to go into technical details. I will say, however, that John Hayes has been around the Provincial and International scene for a long time and has proved himself over and over again. He has come across all of the top referees in the game and they have no problem with him.

“I reckon it’s all a bit of gamesmanship, unless they are some tongue in cheek comments.

“Either way, I’m not interested. My job is to prepare the side for a Celtic League game, not to get involved in a war of words.”

Munster travelled to Wales yesterday with a squad of 23 but without Eddie Halvey who was originally named in a list of nine reserves.

Halvey has a thigh injury and withdrew as a precautionary measure.

“The advice was that he should be rested. It’s just a week away from the start of the Heineken Cup and there is no point in taking unnecessary risks at this stage,” said coach Gaffney.

NEATH (from): G. Morris, J. Storey, D. Tiueti, A. Bateman, S. Williams, L. Jarvis, A. Moore, S. Connor, S. Marsden, P. Horgan, N. Benner-Evans, S. Tandy, S. Martin, G. Llewellyn, A. Newman, A. Mocelutu, H. Jenkins, A. Millard, A. Jones, B. Williams, S. Jones, D. Jones.

MUNSTER: J. Staunton, M. Lawlor, R. Henderson, M. Mullins, J. Kelly, R. O'Gara, P. Stringer, M. Horan, F. Sheahan, J. Hayes, U. O'Callaghan, M. O'Driscoll, J. Williams (captain), A. Foley, A. Quinlan. Replacements. S. Kerr, J. Blaney, M. Galwey, D. Leamy, M. Prendergast, D. Malone, J. Holland, D. Crotty