McGahan demanding better from Munster

RIVAL coaches Tony McGahan and Dai Young have laid their demands on the line prior to this evening’s Magners League clash of Munster and Cardiff Blues at Thomond Park.

Both men were disappointed with their teams’ performances in last week’s first round of matches, with Munster losing to Glasgow at Firhill and the Blues going down at Cardiff City Stadium to Edinburgh.

However, McGahan is confident that his team will step up to the plate this evening, not least because he has been able to include Alan Quinlan and John Hayes from the start. Quinlan will be anxious to make an impression after the disappointment of missing the Lions tour through suspension.

“I am delighted to be pulling on the Munster shirt again and I’m really looking forward to the game,” he said. “Pre-season has gone well and I feel in good shape but this is a big step up from training, particularly when it’s against a quality side like Cardiff. But I still can’t wait to get out on the pitch.”

Hayes comes into the front row in place of Tony Buckley while Quinlan takes over from Billy Holland at number six. Buckley and Holland are named on the bench. The only other change in the starting line-up from the Glasgow game sees Barry Murphy retain the number 13 jersey with Tom Gleeson, whom he replaced at Firhill, also reverting to the replacement panel.

“The absence of a number of players is no excuse for us,” insisted McGahan. “If we had played like we trained, then a victory should have been in sight for us in Glasgow. No matter who is unavailable to us, we believe we have a very strong panel of players capable of competing with any team in the Magners League.

“For whatever reason, it didn’t happen for us against Glasgow. We need to regroup and get a response from the 22 selected for this game.”

The Blues also began last season on a low note before coming good later in the campaign to win the EDF Energy Cup and reach the semi-finals of the Heineken Cup in which they lost in a freakish penalty shoot-out, having drawn after extra time with Leicester Tigers. Last week’s single point defeat, 22-21, against Edinburgh has Young fearing something similar could befall his squad this time round.

“Last year, we drew against Leinster, got hammered against the Ospreys before digging out a lucky win against Ulster which kick-started our season,” Young recalled. “For some reason we are very slow starters and I was hoping we had sorted that out. But, on the evidence of pre-season and the first competitive game, we have not addressed the problem. There is a lot of work to be done and we need to do it together.”

Young admitted that Edinburgh deserved their victory in the Welsh capital despite a late try from Gareth Thomas to set up full-back Ben Blair with a match-winning conversion attempt which he duly missed.

“We wouldn’t have deserved it if we had nicked it at the end,” Young admitted. “Our defence was poor and we did not have enough go-forward ball. But we did show character in the second half and we have to build on the things we did well.”

A major reason for the Blues downfall was a very poor debut by their new Australian acquisition, Sam Norton-Knight at out-half. He had to be replaced after an hour by the more experienced Ceri Sweeney who has kept his place for tonight. Young is also hopeful that the recall of John Yapp, Rhys Thomas and Faao Filise to the front-row and Deiniol Jones to the second-row will inject a lot more fire into his forward pack.