O’Connell on the mend as lay-off sees Reds skipper ‘refreshed’ for fray

MUNSTER skipper Paul O’Connell has revealed his three-week injury lay-off has left him feeling refreshed ahead of Saturday’s clash with Guinness Premiership’s form team Northampton Saints.

O’Connell hasn’t played since Ireland’s defeat by Scotland in the final game of the Six Nations Championship due to a groin problem.

Though he missed out on yesterday’s training, he is convinced the spell of the sidelines will be of benefit as the province face into the business end of the season.

“The injury is okay, the recovery is slower than I’d hoped,” he said last night. “I wanted to train today (Tuesday) but hopefully I will be able to do so Thursday.

“It’s something small which was stiff and sore (after the Scotland game).

“Now, though, I feel good.

“I’ve had two or three weeks off which has been great and very refreshing. It’s been a very strange season because I don’t think I’ve played more than three games in a row.

“It will be nice to get a run of games under the belt although relative to any other country, the Irish should be the freshest coming into this part of the season.

“I feel that way.”

O’Connell dismissed suggestions that Munster don’t perform to the same heights when he’s not there to provide his particular qualities of intensity, skill and commitment.

“The one thing we have is an excellent squad,” he maintained. “We saw that last year in the way we performed in the Magners League. That was a reflection of our squad. Micko (Driscoll) has been playing great rugby and there are good second-rows coming through like Ian Nagle, Dave Foley and Billy Holland. Another big thing in our team is the leadership spread throughout. I don’t think any player is so important to the team as might have been the case before.”

O’Connell is under no illusions about the need for improvement on recent performances, not least the display against Leinster last week when he had to sit in the stand and endure a third successive defeat by their greatest rivals.

“When you lose a game like that, you look straight away at what you have to put right,” he reasoned. “Sometimes when you win, you probably don’t do that as quickly but having lost on Friday you look straight away at where you need to improve. And that’s what we would have done over the weekend and we would have tried to put that into place in training.”

O’Connell noted comparisons between Leinster and Northampton. “They both have very strong, physical packs with a lot of players who have little bits of skill that can unlock defences. They have very good kicking games as well – that’s what Leinster bring more and more into their game – and Northampton are pretty similar.

“In the first game over there, we struggled at the breakdown and we had a big improvement in the second game, so when you put all those little things together – those are the two important things in any game at this stage – the set-piece and the breakdown. If you can put together good performances in both those places and couple that with a good kicking game, you’re a long way towards achieving what you want to achieve.”

While insisting that they will be concentrating on their own preparation and performance, there is still an understandable curiosity as to whether Saints coach Jim Mallinder will opt for the exciting but inconsistent Shane Geraghty or the more reliable Steve Myler in the key out-half position. O’Connell is non-committal either way.

“Geraghty is a very dangerous player, look at the tries he created in the first round against us,” he mused. “Myler has a very good kicking game but he’s a good distributor as well. It’s not something we can get bogged down in, we have to be concerned with our own performance and concentrate on dealing with that.”