Kidney salutes Cork Con coach’s role as youth gets its fling

MUNSTER coach Declan Kidney has praised his Cork Constitution counterpart Brian Walsh for helping shape young full back Denis Hurley’s career.

The talented Hurley vied for man of the match honours in an impressive Munster display against Glasgow Warriors at Musgrave Park.

And Kidney observed: “I know that Brian has been working hard with Denis to help him become a better player. All we can ask when they reach us is that they be themselves. I think Denis was like that against Glasgow; he had a similar type game as he did in the AIB League final last week and proved he is up for it. That augers well for the future.”

Kidney was hesitant in getting involved in the critical analysis by Walsh and Garryowen coach Paul Cunningham following an IRFU decision to maintain the status quote in the AIB League.

Both Walsh and Cunningham condemned the decision to have a 16 team Division One for at least another two years, believing that the league needs to be culled to become more competitive.

But Kidney did note: “All I do know is that Munster’s success has been built on the success of the Munster clubs over the past number of years by finishing amongst the top teams in the league. We’re also very grateful for the amount of support we have received from the clubs.

Meanwhile, Alan Quinlan, expressed satisfaction that Munster finished off the season on a high.

“Overall, it has been a disappointing season by our own standards. We didn’t get to where we wanted to be.

“However, having got a run of wins together in the last few weeks, I think we showed the character in the side.’’

Quinlan admitted that it had been a frustrating season even aside from the lack of tangible success.

“It was a very stop-start type of season. I suppose we paid a price for success in that we have so many guys involved with the international set up.

“Although there are positives to that in the sense that younger guys are getting their chance and an opportunity to become more experienced, it is also disruptive because the season becomes very stop-start with guys coming and going and coming back again.’’

“In addition, the way the season was structured meant that there were gaps between games; we played a total of three games in the nine weeks after our first Heineken Cup game against Leicester when the internationals were on. That meant it was almost like getting to know you again when we came back.

“You want to be able to play week in week out and it’s frustrating to say the least. One example was that when we lost to Cardiff in the Magners League, we just wanted to get straight back into another game to put matters right. Unfortunately, we had to wait for another three weeks for the next game,” he said.

Quinlan had words of praise for the departing Christian Cullen and Trevor Halstead, whom he said had “really bought into the Munster ethos”.

“They have been really top class guys for us. The one guy, though, we all feel sorry for is Christian because he has had such a run of bad luck almost since he came here.

“There is nobody more disappointed than himself, but he brought a huge amount to the party. The public wouldn’t know about the huge amount of work he did behind the scenes in passing on the benefit of his experience and helping to bring younger players through. In more ways than the obvious, he is a fantastic character and a fantastic person.’’