Gaffney bids to get balance right

MUNSTER go into their third successive day of intensive preparation for Saturday’s crucial Heineken Cup tie against Castres Olympique at Thomond Park with coach Alan Gaffney still none the wiser about the composition of his team.

But there will be changes in the three-quarter line and in the pack following the 19-12 defeat in Stade Pierre Antoine last Friday night and Gaffney announced a squad of 27 after yesterday’s session at the University of Limerick. Included are Paul Devlin and James Storey, who could get the call on the right wing and outside centre.

Denis Leamy is fully recovered from his damaged ear and looks a good bet to return at number seven in place of David Wallace. With two other flankers, Jim Williams and Alan Quinlan, also in the squad, one of this highly talented group won’t even get to sit on the bench.

“One of the five back-rowers won’t be in the 22 and that’s a tough call”, accepted Gaffney. “All five are fully fit so there won’t be any injury cloud over any of them. We’ve got to get more oomph into the back line. Obviously, too, defence comes into the issue. I thought for the majority of the game, our defence in the middle of the field was fine. Rob Henderson defended very well; Shaun Payne did miss a couple of tackles and it was one of his worst performances in that respect. He is usually one of our better defenders. We’ve got to ensure we have more of a cutting edge to our attack.

“Do we leave it as it is - that combination has scored a lot of tries in the Celtic League but we are now up a step. Mike Mullins and James Storey are good attacking players. Now we’ve got to work out which is the best combination. Should we play Mossy Lawler or Shaun Payne on the wing? The more time Paul Devlin gets, the better player he becomes. It’s all about balance.”

John Kelly, still ruled out by an injured ankle, and John Hayes yesterday became the latest recipients of the ERC Elite Awards for making 50 appearances in the Heineken Cup. Kelly reached the landmark against Harlequins and Hayes became the third Munster player to do so in Castres on Friday last.

Ronan O’Gara will lead Munster on Saturday to mark his achievement in becoming the latest man to hit the 50 mark. Having scored 32 points in the three matches this season, the out-half brought his total of Heineken Cup points to 640 and needs six more to surpass the record set by Diego Dominguez (64 with Milan in 6 games, 581 for Stade Francais in 36).

Not everybody would agree but Gaffney still believes the Munster defence stood up pretty well last week and produced some interesting statistics to support his argument: “We could pin the try down to two missed tackles but that started way up the pitch. We can get back to the fact that Cully (Christian Cullen) missed a tackle he should have made but the error was made a long, long time before that. He did miss a crucial tackle but ten crucial tackles were missed and we point to the one Cully missed because it happened out in the open. I could tell you about the one that happened four plays before that was probably more important than the one Cully missed.

“We only missed 13 tackles in the whole game and I wouldn’t think that’s a lot in a game of 80 minutes and with the amount of ball they had. Obviously you would like zero tackles missed but you’re very fortunate if that occurs. They had a lot of ball. We only had one scrum feed and five line-out fees in the first forty minutes. That was due to the fact we didn’t play particularly well and they didn’t make many mistakes.”

Gaffney now believes that restoring “more belief in what we’re doing” is one of the key factors facing himself and his players throughout this week. They intend to play more attacking rugby, keeping more ball in hand and put the kind of pressure on Castres that they failed to do last week. The Thomond Park factor is sure to be important but all agree that it won’t win the game on its own.

“It always is an advantage but we’ve got to go out there and play to our potential,” accepted Gaffney. “We’ll be more on the front foot this weekend.

MUNSTER SQUAD: Paul Burke, Christian Cullen, Paul Devlin, Anthony Horgan, Rob Henderson, Jason Holland, Mossy Lawler, Mike Mullins, Shaun Payne, Mike Prendergast, Ronan O’Gara, Peter Stringer, James Storey; James Blaney, Anthony Foley, Jerry Flannery, John Hayes, Marcus Horan, Trevor Hogan, Denis Leamy, Gordon McIlwham, Paul O’Connell, Donncha O’Callaghan, Alan Quinlan, Frankie Sheahan, David Wallace, Jim Williams.