Hayes certain to start against Gloucester

JOHN HAYES trained with Munster at Thomond Park yesterday and is a certain starter against Gloucester in the Heineken European Cup at Kingsholm on Saturday.

Hayes was rested for last Friday’s Celtic League tie against Connacht in Athlone because of a strained calf muscle.

Coach Alan Gaffney put his men through a couple of full blooded sessions, both morning and afternoon, and reported no injury problems. Jeremy Staunton has a slight groin problem and was absent in the afternoon, but he will be available for selection.

Gaffney announces his side in Musgrave Park at 1pm tomorrow.

“Our session this morning was possibly our best of the whole year,” enthused Gaffney. “The boys were really up for it and are desperately keen to maintain the momentum achieved through the games against Cardiff, Bourgoin and Treviso.

It will be mid-week at the earliest before Nigel Melville, Gloucester’s director of rugby, shows his hand. Much depends on the outcome of a disciplinary hearing today at which hooker Chris Fortey’s red card for fighting in a Zurich Premiership League game last Saturday week will be top of the agenda. Gloucester are keeping their fingers crossed that Fortey will get the all clear, all the more so as he is their replacement for Frenchman Olivier Azam, whose contract was terminated at the end of last season along with out-half Ludovic Mercier.

Munster will be in all sorts of trouble if Gloucester winger James Simpson-Daniel sees too much of the ball. That is, if we are to believe the words of former England and Bath out-half Stuart Barnes writing in yesterday’s “Daily Telegraph.” Barnes maintains that “as a finisher, he is becoming part Thierry Henry, part Ruud van Nistelrooy. That is a potent combination.”

Certainly, Simpson-Daniel appears to be a more complete player than the one that drifted in and out of favour at Gloucester last season and the side as a whole looked extremely impressive when travelling to Welford Road on Saturday when they put one over on Leicester.

As preparations go it was in stark contrast to Munster’s 3-0 win the previous night over Connacht. The conditions were a whole lot better but of Saturday’s protagonists, Gloucester looked a far more cohesive side coming off successive matches against Harlequins, Northampton and the Tigers. Munster, in contrast, hadn’t been together since the Treviso game on December 13 because of the demands of the Irish management, and it showed.

Alan Gaffney travelled to Welford Road on Saturday and was struck more by the decline in Leicester’s fortunes than by excellence on the part of Gloucester.

“Leicester were short a few key forwards and others have retired and to be honest they were quite poor. Still, Gloucester played well. Henry Paul had a fine match in the centre, they have replaced Thinus Delport at full-back with a very useful looking player in Jon Goodridge, a guy I hadn’t seen before, and they have a terrific back-row in Junior Paramore, Jake Boer and Peter Buxton, with Andy Hazell in reserve.”

Gaffney admits Munster “weren’t good” against Connacht: “We made a lot of errors although that was to be expected because we hadn’t been together for three weeks. We were out there in difficult conditions against a side that knows how we play. Without a doubt, we kicked too much ball away. On one occasion, we built up eight to ten phases only for the ball to spew out the side, they hacked it downfield, and we were under pressure again.

“We tried to create a few things but we just never developed it, maybe we weren’t patient enough. We gave back a lot of scraggy ball and didn’t protect Stringer too well. Every Connacht game is going to be a contest, a real dogfight. We should have played better but we’ll still take the result. Obviously Gloucester are a different side. We’ve got to compete with them up front and that’s where the contest may be won or lost. That’s why the Connacht game will benefit us.”

The draw took place yesterday for 630 pairs of tickets for the game.

Close on 9,000 applications were received.