Tough task to replace de Villiers, says Payne
De Villiers announced Monday he is to return to South Africa next season in an effort to keep alive his dreams of playing in their title defence next season.
Finding suitable replacements from the southern hemisphere will be extremely difficult given most players would put hopes of securing national selection for the global showpiece in New Zealand ahead of any potential experience and profit to be gained from a sojourn overseas.
“We’d be looking to sign a player of high class — as we did with Jean — a high-profile player, someone who’d be able to be a positive influence on the younger fellows and give a massive impetus to the squad as well,” Payne agreed.
“In the lead-up to a World Cup year, you’d have to believe it will be difficult to find someone along those lines.
“It is very disappointing that Jean is going especially as he was settling into the side. Every week, he is becoming more and more influential and hopefully he goes home with a medal or two. In order to guarantee himself the possibility of being selected for the Springboks, he would have to play a season in South Africa.”
Earlier this month the province signed Johne Murphy from Leicester Tigers and Payne believes he will “be a great addition to the squad and he will fit in absolutely perfectly.
“But he has nothing to do with the centre situation at all. Ideally, we’d love all our players to be Irish qualified. In terms of the allowances we get from the IRFU, we look to sign as many good Irish-qualified players as we can.”
However Payne is confident that Doug Howlett and Lifeimi Mafi will be part of Munster plans next season.
Howlett’s three-year contract ends in May but it looks certain Munster will attempt to secure the 31-year-old’s services for at least another season. Much the same applies to Mafi, 27, especially with de Villiers’ exit.
“We have done a tremendous amount of work already this season when it comes to renewals and recruitment and will shortly be making an announcement as a whole rather than feeding the information from time to time,” said Payne. “Suffice to say, most of the news is very positive. I’m not going to give any specific information regarding Dougie or Mafs at the minute but we’re very happy at how the renewals are going this season.”
Munster still have a number of injury problems going into the weekend. Among the players on the injured list are hooker Damien Varley, out for four to six weeks with a shoulder injury; prop Darragh Hurley who has renewed light training but may not play again this season; number eight Nick Williams, who should be fit in 10 days or so and out-half Jeremy Manning, who is targeting the away game against Neath in the B&I Cup on February 26.
Denis Leamy and Felix Jones have been ruled out until next season and John Hayes, Jerry Flannery, Paul O’Connell, David Wallace, Tomas O’Leary, Ronan O’Gara and Keith Earls are all unavailable for Friday.
The Munster squad return today from warm weather training in Lanzarote where, ironically enough, it has rained solidly for the last three days. Even so, Payne believes the week will prove beneficial.
“We went through a similar regime last year at this time of the year and came back to have three great games without the Six Nations group and that went a long towards winning the Magners League,” he said. “Hopefully it will give us the same impetus this year and we will see the benefits on Friday night.
“There are only four places at stake come the end of May and there’s a huge advantage if you finish in the top two with a home game, not only for the team but there are also financial implications. So the coming matches are vital.”
MUNSTER squad (v Edinburgh)
Forwards: M. Horan, J. Brugnaut, T. Buckley, D. Ryan, D. Fogarty, M. Sherry, D. Ryan, M. O’Driscoll, I. Nagle, A. Quinlan, T. O’Donnell, N. Ronan, J. Coughlan, B. Holland.
Backs: P. Stringer, D. Williams, P. Warwick, J. de Villiers, L. Mafi, T. Gleeson, I. Dowling, D. Howlett, D. Hurley, S. Deasy, C. O’Boyle.
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