O’Gara boost for Munster
O’Gara and Tony Buckley came into the Irish team in the final quarter of last Saturday’s game against England. However, as they didn’t start at Twickenham, they have been made available to Munster by the national management, news that was warmly greeted by manager Shaun Payne.
“It’s a massive bonus to have Rog back,” he agreed. “Personally, he’d have been very disappointed at not starting against England so you can be sure of one thing and it’s that he’ll be raring to go when he gets back on the pitch with us. It’s a huge positive for us, especially because we have some younger fellows and there’s no better role model than Rog.
“We have really decent depth in the squad at the moment. You look at what the lads did against the Welsh Premiership leaders. I think we’re in a very good place. Some of the younger lads like (Peter) O’Mahony and others are flying in that B & I Cup and I feel there are a lot of positives there for us.”
Payne was referring to the game at the Gnoll when Munster’s youngsters came back from a poor start to maintain their comfortable lead at the top of their pool in the new competition. They are virtually assured of a home semi-final with only the struggling Scottish side Heriots standing in their way.
Further good news for Munster is that New Zealand back-row forward Nick Williams, whose time here has been blighted by a series of injuries, made a highly successful return for Munster A at the Gnoll on Saturday and is included in the 25 man squad.
Payne spoke in glowing terms of Scott Deasy, the Cork Constitution youngster who made such a big impression in Munster’s recent win over Edinburgh. He was thrown in at the deep end early on that night when Paul Warwick was forced to retire with a dead leg and looked well up to the task. Asked as to what he believed to be Deasy’s best position, Payne admitted that he wasn’t entirely sure before adding that “he’s multi-talented and like any young fellow at the moment, his favourite position is one that will get him time on the team.”
On the debit side, Donnacha Ryan yesterday underwent an operation on his dislocated shoulder and is likely to be out for the remainder of the season. Niall Ronan, Tom Gleeson and Dave Ryan have also joined those on the injured list although all three are expected back in the near future.
Looking ahead to Saturday’s visit to Newport, Payne described it as very important as they chase a home semi-final in the Magners League. He pointed out that it was one of their few remaining away matches and that they were due to take on some of those ahead of them in the table on home territory.
“If we can pick up a result this week-end, we’ll be well placed to launch an assault on the semis,” he said.
“If you look over the stats, we’re top try scorers and we’ve conceded one more try than the best record in the competition. We’ve played some decent rugby but ended up only winning a little more than we’ve lost. We may be top try scorers but haven’t had a lot of three pointers and are the lowest in the league by a long way.
“And our away form hasn’t been good at all so far which makes it more important that we try and do something in this game. We’ve had a lot of success against the Dragons but this is a totally different Dragons side to what we have seen in the last few seasons. They seem to have a good core of young players coming through and they have been excellent at home this season.”
Wales stars Luke Charteris and Dan Lydiate are both included in the Dragons squad after being released back to the region from the Welsh camp this week. Wing Will Harries, who has returned from Sevens duty in Las Vegas, is also included.
MUNSTER squad: Forwards: M Horan, J Brugnaut, T Buckley, S Archer, D Varley, D Fogarty, M Sherry, M O’Driscoll, I Nagle, B Holland, A Quinlan, T O’Donnell, N Williams, J Coughlan. Backs: D Williams, P Stringer, P Warwick, R O’Gara, S Deasy, J De Villiers, L Mafi, I Dowling, D Howlett, C O’Boyle, D Hurley
DRAGONS squad: B Castle, H Gustafson, P Palmer, T Willis, D Goodfield, A Jones, L Charteris , R Sidoli, H Macdonald, L Evans, D Lydiate, G Thomas, J Harris; M Thomas, R Fussell, W Harries, A Brew, T Riley, M Watkins, A Smith, J Tovey, J Arlidge, J Leadbeater, W Evans.
