Stringer primed for vital duel with Peel

PEEL OR Stringer — if you had your choice of scrum-halves in the morning, who would you take?

There are many who reckon that Harry Ellis’s impressive form for England aside, the Welshman is the best scrum-half on these islands, and would be a certainty to start for the Lions were there a tour this year.

There are also those, however, and in Munster especially, who wouldn’t swap the feisty Corkman for anyone. It’s not just his skill levels that have endeared him to Munster (and Ireland) followers, his pin-point rocket pass off left or right, it’s his terrier attitude, his eternal willingness to have a go, to take on the world, challenge any odds. This Friday night in Stradey Park they meet again, Peel and Stringer, Llanelli and Munster. It’s not the first time this season; last time they met, Ireland against Wales in Cardiff, Peter came out on top. A similar result this weekend will do him nicely.

“He’s a quality player,” he says of Peel, “We know each other quite well now both on and off the pitch, having come up against each other on a number of occasions. It’s something you look forward to each time you go out and play against him, we have a good go at each other, a good competitive game between us; it’s tough on the pitch but we get on off it. I’m looking forward to it, though because we know each other so well it makes it more difficult to break each other down.”

Stradey Park he also knows well — been there a few times, didn’t do so well.

“We played a couple of Magner’s League games over there, it’s really physical and tough, and we’ll be expecting the same come Friday night.

“Llanelli are one of the form teams in Europe and they showed in the pool stages that they have the ability to score from anywhere on the pitch. One to 15 they have great quality and ability and we have to be aware of that, try and match that in our defence, try and own the ball for as long as possible, don’t let them play. Their forwards just love to dominate, set the platform for their backs.

“We’ve got to be ready to match that, look to take it to the next level ourselves, but it doesn’t get much tougher than this, especially up front. Dominate the front five and you can set the platform, move the backs around, but it’s going to be very, very physical.”

Looking back on their Six Nations meeting, in fact on that tournament in its entirety, it was a real roller-coaster affair, hugely demanding. The challenge now for Peter and his Munster team-mates from the Irish squad is to put that experience behind them, adjust the focus.

“There’s always that mentality, we’ve got to put everything behind us from the last number of weeks but bring the confidence and experience we’ve gained from going away to places like Scotland, Italy, Wales, bring that winning feeling into the squad. We’re defending champions, we’ve got to hold our heads high, look to take this to the next level, take that confidence into it. It’s going to be tough in the first 20 minutes just getting back to playing with each other, simple basics will do it for us in the first 20.

“We have to be patient, realise this is our first game back together in a number of weeks, try not to force the play too much, go through our patterns, work our way into the game, not be panicky, just play simple rugby. If we manage to do that, then hopefully as the game goes on we can try and expand our game, try to get into it more and more.”

Given the potential in the Llanelli back three, concentration in defence will be key, but then this is a hallmark of Peter’s game anyway: he’s always alert to the quick break.

“We’re fully aware of their capabilities, their backs have scored a number of tries, quite pacy out wide. We’ve got to step up our defensive efforts from Ravenhill the other night (Magner’s League win over Ulster after a terrible start), I think the guys would be the first to hold their hands up and admit, they made a few errors.

‘‘Hopefully that’s what this week is about, get back to training together, cut out those errors, rectify what went wrong. We’re fully aware of where Llanelli can score, they have a good try-scoring record, hopefully we’ll have our homework done by Friday night.”