O’Leary out of Munster’s league opener

TOMÁS O’LEARY suffered another blow yesterday when he was forced to withdraw from Munster’s squad for tonight’s opening clash with Newport-Gwent Dragons at Musgrave Park.

O’Leary suffered a recurrence of a back injury and his place on the bench will be taken by Duncan Williams.

On this opening day of the competitive season expectations are high within the Munster camp, notwithstanding the fact so many front line players are away on World Cup duty.

Assistant coach Anthony Foley insists it is time for some of the less experienced players to deliver in the build up to a Heineken Cup start fixed for mid November. With Ireland’s internationals forced to observe a two-week period of rest following their exploits in New Zealand, the young members of Munster’s squad could be called to dig even deeper than expected over the next six weeks.

Yesterday, Foley threw down the gauntlet when he said the time had come for the younger guys to step up, but confidently suggested they wouldn’t have much difficulty in doing so.

“The beauty of this is that a lot of the guys being brought in are coming from Academy and Development squads; it’s great that the guys aren’t coming in cold as such, they know the system.

“Really, there are only two new players to the system, Ian Keatley and BJ Botha, but they would know Munster well.

“For the next six weeks at least, these guys are everything we banked on, we trust them to get us through this block of games. Hopefully further on in the season they can grow within the jersey because that’s the chance they have been given and we’re pretty confident.”

Foley is looking forward especially to Billy Holland, Dave Foley and the injured Ian Nagle making their mark in red.

“They’ve all soldiered with the A team the last couple of seasons and have come through the Academy before that. They’re well schooled in the ways of Munster rugby and I suppose the one thing they have been missing is the opportunity to play in [the Pro12] regularly.

“They’re going to get [opportunities] in one sense because players are away, but they have also earned it through the pre-season work and the form they have shown so far.”

Foley is strong on insisting that Munster must win their home matches at least, but banks on picking up results on the road as well.

He added: “We need to get the performances right at this early stage of the season.

“We’re at home, we have field advantage and [we] just make sure we have to do what we have to do to win this very important opening match.”

There were cautious but hopeful words from Dragons coach Darren Edwards, who said: “Munster will be a tough challenge – despite the players they are missing.

“I know that our record in Musgrave has not been great over the years but there is a confidence about the squad this season that enables us to only think about the game ahead rather than worrying about what has gone in the past.”

Munster: J Murphy; D Howlett, D Barnes, L Mafi, D Hurley; I Keatley, P Stringer; M Horan, M Sherry, S Archer; B Holland, M O’Driscoll; P O’Mahony (capt),J Coughlan, N Ronan.

Replacements: D Varley, W Du Preez, J Hayes, D Foley, T O’Donnell, D Williams, S Deasy, S Zebo.

Newport Gwent Dragons: S Jones; A Hughes, T Riley, A Smith, Mike Poole; Jason Tovey, J Bedford; P Price, T Willis (capt), B Castle; A Jones, R Sidoli; A Coombs, G Thomas, T Brown.

Replacements: R Buckley, N Williams, D Way, J Groves, H Ellis, W Evans, P Leach, M Thomas.

Referee: S Penne (Italy).