Mallinder: Saints would relish rematch

NORTHAMPTON coach Jim Mallinder would relish the opportunity to return for another game with Munster at Thomond Park, should the Heineken Cup quarter-final draw throw the two sides together.

Mallinder saw the game as a lost opportunity for his side, as he noted: “I keep looking back to that series of scrums on the line and can’t help wondering whether we might have done anything differently; I think we made the right decision to keep re-scrumming but we didn’t convert the pressure into points, and we missed a couple of kicks at goal as well.

“Maybe we might have kept the ball in hand more when they were down to seven players (in the pack, after the sin binning of Paul O’Connell), but these are things you think about after the game,” he said. Mallinder saw the line-outs and scrums as areas where his side could trouble Munster in a possible re-match. “I think, however, we probably committed too many players to the rucks and that limited our options. We would certainly have to look at that aspect of our play,” he suggested, “but we wouldn’t mind making a return to Limerick if that’s what is thrown at us.”