O’Connell returns for derby day showdown
However, the Lions captain will not line out for the full 80 minutes due to a combination of his total lack of game time since his return from South Africa and because he is also nursing a minor hamstring strain that caused him to miss Sunday’s win over the Dragons.
He carried an ice pack on his thigh immediately after Munster’s second session of the day at UL yesterday but insisted it was purely a precautionary step.
“It only happened a week and a half ago and so I have to ice it after any bit of physical activity in case it swells up,” he said. “It’s nothing too serious but if I don’t look after it, it’s probably something that could drag on for the rest of the year. But I am available for Saturday.”
Also returning to action is another Lion, David Wallace, and hooker Jerry Flannery, while a question mark still hangs over Alan Quinlan’s bruised shoulder. All will be revealed tomorrow when there will be special interest on how coach Tony McGahan deals with the embarrassment of riches he enjoys in positions like the back three, centre three-quarter, scrum-half, hooker, second row and back row.
It could even be that Nick Williams, the hat-trick hero of the win over the Dragons, won’t find a place in the 22, especially if Quinlan proves his fitness, while Tony Buckley is probably pushing John Hayes hard for the number three jersey. Flannery is back to challenge Denis Fogarty for the hooker position and that means no place at all for Damian Varley, who has also shown impressive early-season form.
Now that Peter Stringer is fit again, either he or New Zealander Toby Morland will miss out entirely. With Doug Howlett sure of his place on the right wing and Lifeimi Mafi and Jean De Villiers likewise in the centre, the axe could fall on players of the calibre of Ian Dowling, Paul Warwick, Denis Hurley, Felix Jones and even Lion Keith Earls. It’s a dilemma that the coach will agonise over for another 24 hours before showing his hand.
“That’s the challenge that we knew was coming,” admitted McGahan. “The back row is such a competitive area now. We need to look at the selection mix, who we’re playing and the kind of game we want to play. Everyone was delighted for Nick [Williams] last week that he was able to show Cork people what he was about.”
Saturday’s game at the RDS comes only a week before Munster’s Heineken Cup visit to Northampton so this is a crucial period for McGahan and his squad. He is loud in his praise of how Leinster have performed so far while accepting that “any side would be a different proposition without Rocky Elsom”. “He was tremendous last year and he will be hard to replace. That said, they have some very good young players coming through and won’t be short.”
Giving game to the key players is one of McGahan’s biggest requirements but he underlines the dangers of rushing them back before they are ready so it is inevitable that the bench will be busy over the next couple of weeks. And he agrees that the pain from last season’s Heineken Cup semi-final defeat to Leinster still burns so deeply that this weekend’s game “isn’t going to make us feel any better or any worse”. “Sure, the local derby, the feeling between the supporters, through the media and the players themselves are always going to be there and what a Munster-Leinster game represents. Those challenges and emotions are always going to be there.”
O’Connell sees things in very much the same light. This game has nothing like the significance of last May in Croke Park but it’s Munster v Leinster for all that.
“That game was a huge disappointment, any time you lose to Leinster, it’s tough, and it will always be at the back of our minds,” he admitted. “But we’re trying to just focus on ourselves and not on the past or Leinster or how big a game it is. We’re only one game away from the Heineken Cup and it’s not ideal. With having a lot of players with the Lions and others injured during the summer, we’re at the stage where we concentrate on ourselves and not who we’re playing.”
Munster squad:
Forwards: M Horan, J Hayes, T Buckley, D Fogarty, J Flannery, D O’Callaghan, M O’Driscoll, P O’Connell, D Ryan, D Leamy, N Ronan, D Wallace, N Williams, A Quinlan.
Backs: T O’Leary, T Morland, P Stringer, R O’Gara, P Warwick, J de Villiers, L Mafi, D Howlett, I Dowling, D Hurley, K Earls, F Jones.
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