Gracious Gaffney hails ‘balanced’ Munster

ALAN GAFFNEY believes so strongly that Munster are now a “better balanced” side than when he left the province three years ago, that he plans to have a little wager on them to beat Toulouse in the Heineken Cup final on May 24th.

In the wake of his side’s heart-breaking defeat at the Ricoh Arena, Gaffney said that while the forward pack was almost identical, Munster now had a few more options with Tomas O’Leary at scrum half.

“I’m not commenting on whether he should be there or not and he had a very strong game in the quarter-final. There is no doubt about that. But Strings (Peter Stringer) is still a good player and adding Tipoki and Mafi at 12 and 13 has added a new dimension and Howlett on the wing is an extremely good player. Hurley didn’t get many opportunities today but I was impressed with what he did against Gloucester. They’re bringing some young players through. They can attack and they did put us under a lot of pressure, so they’ve come a long way since I left them.”