Big guns on comeback trail as Munster bid to slay Dragons

THE boys are back in town — or most of them anyway.

Paul O’Connell and his Lions team-mates Donncha O’Callaghan and Ronan O’Gara are included for the first time this season in a squad of 25 from which the Munster team to face the Newport Gwent Dragons at Musgrave Park on Sunday next will be finalised. There’s also a place for new signing — and one of the stars of South Africa’s Tri-Nations winning side — Jean De Villiers.

However, David Wallace is still being rested along with Doug Howlett while Niall Ronan, Jerry Flannery, Peter Stringer and Paul Warwick are on the injured list. It is testimony to the strength of the squad that even without six players of this calibre, Munster coach Tony McGahan will still be able to announce a formidable 22 when naming his team on Friday.

Manager Shaun Payne stressed last night that De Villiers will not play the full 80 minutes against the Dragons and much the same applies to O’Connell, O’Callaghan and O’Gara.

“Jean trained with us today for the first time, he has done all his medicals, and is free to go,” said Payne. “He definitely won’t play for more than half the match as we’re trying to ease him into it. We’re not pushing our luck with any of these players. Paul (O’Connell) has had a really good pre-season so there’s no worries there.

“But Niall Ronan picked up a rib injury in the first half last week and that’s why he didn’t come out for the second half. We think he may have a rib cartilage injury. Wally is only back into proper contact training for the first time this week and it’s more a cumulative thing with him rather than a specific problem. Strings is still struggling with his calf injury. Dougie hardly ever seems to get injured but he’s played a lot of rugby and we don’t want to be pushing our luck with him.”

With Ronan and Wallace both out of the equation, the back-row line-up will be of special interest, all the more so as the powerfully built New Zealander Nick Williams has made a quicker-than-anticipated return from a knee injury and actually came through a 50-minute appearance for Dolphin last week. Tommy O’Donnell, a replacement in Llanelli last week, could be included from the start on Sunday while James Coughlan may also get the call alongside Denis Leamy and Alan Quinlan.

Tony McGahan has several other difficult calls to make, not least in the three-quarter line where one of Keith Earls, Jean De Villiers and Lifeimi Mafi will not start the game in the centre. For now, at any rate, the plan is to play the Springbok ace at number 12. Then there’s the case of Denis Hurley, who has been a massive success so far on the left wing, capping a splendid overall display with two superbly-taken tries against the Llanelli Scarlets.

“Denis has really flourished and been one of those who impressed us most,” said Payne. “Obviously, he felt a bit of pressure last year in his second season. But now he has come out firing and apart from the way he took his tries at the weekend, I thought he had an excellent game.”

Munster go into round four of the Magners League with eight points after three matches having won well against Cardiff Blues and rather fortuitously in Llanelli last week.

However, discipline, or rather the lack of it, continues to be a major problem for the side with Alain Rolland appearing to agree with the referees of the previous Magners League games to ping Munster regularly at Parc Y Scarlets and also dispatch Denis Leamy and Donncha Ryan to the sin bin. While the latter’s indiscretion seemed to be minor and hardly merited such harsh treatment, the number of penalties conceded was once again unacceptable.

“That’s three weeks in a row now,” agreed a frustrated Payne. “As I said before, you need to play to the referee as much as you need to play to the opposition. You need to be smart.”

MUNSTER squad (v Dragons): M Horan, T Buckley, J Brugnaut, J Hayes, D Fogarty, D Varley, M O’Driscoll, P O’Connell, D Ryan, D O’Callaghan, A Quinlan, T O’Donnell, N Williams, D Leamy, J Coughlan; T O’Leary, T Morland, R O’Gara, J Manning, L Mafi, J De Villiers, B Murphy, D Hurley, K Earls, F Jones.