McGahan on guard as Treviso ‘gunning’ for Munster
“I’ve been talking to some friends in Italy who told me Treviso are gunning for Munster,” admitted McGahan.
“Without doubt, they’ll be the best Italian side in European Cup history.
“They beat Perpignan in round one and led us by 10-0 in Thomond Park up to the 25th minute. We were lucky to put some tries into them at the end but that was only after a lot of hard grafting work. They led at Northampton and were unlucky to give up a try in the last two or three minutes before half-time and another at the end and lost 30-18.
“They went back home and lost only 21-18 to Northampton in round four and were extremely competitive for 78 minutes. So they’ve shown excellent form in the Heineken Cup and will be looking to finish it off at home.”
Munster lead the standings on 15 points, two clear of Northampton, their opponents in the final pool game at Thomond Park on Friday week (8pm), with Perpignan and Treviso on 6 and 5 points respectively.
But McGahan isn’t getting carried away with the potential mathematics in the quest for qualification.
“We need to win our two games, it’s that simple an equation,” continued McGahan. “We’ll be expecting Northampton to get the points against Perpignan so for our own peace of mind, all our focus is on ourselves.
“We need to beat Treviso and get a result against Northampton regardless of what happens next weekend.
“Number one, we’re playing at home and, two, we don’t want to lose at home because we know how we felt after losing to Leicester a few years ago. I tried to hide myself away for six months after that.
“Treviso are in a totally different mindset to Perpignan. They’re really targeting these Heineken Cup matches and getting some wins at home. Their coach, Franco Smith, seems to be an excellent operator. He’s obviously well organised and has Treviso playing a good style of rugby that suits their team. They have adapted well in the Heineken Cup against three very good sides.”
McGahan is likely to pair Jean de Villiers and Keith Earls in the centre with Lifeimi Mafi on the bench and may move David Wallace to number eight in place of the injured Denis Leamy and play Niall Ronan on the open side flank.
Though Jerry Flannery is close to full recovery from his Achilles tendon injury but will not be considered Saturday. Denis Fogarty will be the starting hooker with Damien Varley on the bench. The Heineken Cup allows for two more front-row replacements. Tony Buckley will be one of those and Marcus Horan could be the other although he hasn’t had a game since the mid-October meeting of Munster and Treviso.
“While Damien had two really good games against Connacht and Ulster, we certainly recognised Denis’s form prior to that in the two Perpignan games and against the Ospreys”, said McGahan. “Considering he was carrying an injury going into the Perpignan round four game and got through that for 60 minutes, he played very well. One of the most pleasing things from a coaching perspective in professional sport is to be able to see improvement and a change in behaviour in a guy’s playing style. Damien needed to work on a few things while building on the good things and to see such an improvement from the beginning of the season is a testimony to his professionalism and his desire to get better.”
McGahan and his management team have been frustrated by the number of injuries suffered by key players this season, coupled with the recent loss of the senior international players under the IRFU “active rest” policy.
“We felt we’d be able to hit the ground running from the Ospreys game in and that we’d be at our best going to Northampton. But I suppose the Ospreys week was a real downer for us because we had an excellent preparation so up to the Ulster game, I’d give us no more than 5 ½ out of 10. It’s a bit early to mark us out of 10 again until after the Northampton game as how we finish that will give us an indication as to where we are.”
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