Holley plans Biarritz briefing
Holley and his Ospreys side suffered a heartbreaking 29-28 Heineken Cup quarter-final defeat to the French giants almost a fortnight ago. But head coach Holley has revealed he will exchange ideas with McGahan before tomorrow’s Magners League showdown, just eight days ahead of the Red Army’s semi-final in San Sebastian.
Holley said: “I’d imagine Tony will ask me. He’s a good man, a good coach and a nice person who said a lot of nice things about us as a coaching team and a playing group last year. So I might swap a few stories with him.”
Both sides lie in the top four as the race for the end-of-season play-offs hots up with the crunch clash at Thomond Park tomorrow. The Limerick venue holds painful memories for the visitors after they were humiliated 43-9 in last season’s knock-out tie before then witnessing Munster lift the Magners League title in May.
But Holley believes the Ospreys will be motivated to banish their demonsas they bid to nail down a homesemi-final.
He added: “We have moved on from last season. It wasn’t a happy day and it wasn’t my favourite post-match press conference. But you have to go through theseexperiences.
“I spoke to Michael Cheika last weekend and he said it was painful to watch our game against Biarritz because he has been there while I also spoke to Tony and Alan Gaffney because they have all been there before. We have a great group of players but unfortunately it’s another one of these experiences we have had to go through like Munster last year. We believe we notched things up this year and we will get there in the end. But it’s not nice.
“Munster were deserved winners last season and we showed them respect on the day. We played well for a spell but we didn’t have enough left in the tank. But this year we are in good shape. We have a lot of players who are back from long-term injuries in Adam Jones, Lee Byrne, Mike Phillips and Alun Wyn Jones while Dan Biggar and Andrew Bishop didn’t play during the Six Nations so there is still petrol left in the tank. And it’s an opportunity for us to go back there and show that that wasn’t the real Ospreys.”
Munster have fitness concerns over skipper Paul O’Connell and Keith Earls but Holley believes his men will face a charged-up home side.
Holley added: “Munster will pick their best available side to them. History suggests to me that they will do that. They enjoy playing a big game before a Heineken game as it prepares them. That’s the way they approach things mentally. They become a hardened outfit.
“They will want to win the Magners as much as they want to win the Heineken. That’s the way it should be. But we want to win our last two games. We have one eye on permutations and we have a magic figure of 51 points in mind but I believe two wins would be enough.”
Meanwhile, Ulster coach Brian McLaughlin has named a 26-man squad for Sunday’s Magners League clash with Edinburgh at Murrayfield (4.05pm).
ULSTER: Forwards: R Best, B Young, BJ Botha, N McComb, A Kyriacou, E O’Donoghue, D Tuohy, R Caldwell, C Henry, T Court, S Ferris, R Diack, TJ Anderson, D Pollock. Backs: J Smith, P Marshall, S Danielli, D Cave, I Whitten, N Spence, I Humphreys, N O’Connor, I Boss, W Faloon, A Trimble, P Wallace
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