Reds keen to derail Ospreys

THE Ospreys travel to Thomond Park tonight in search of their second win over Munster in 18 months – a victory that would see them become the first team to beat all four Irish provinces in the one half of the regulated two part RaboDirect Pro12 (formerly Magners League) season.

The Welsh side have already accounted for Leinster (27-3), Ulster (32-14) and Connacht (26-21), all at the Liberty Stadium.

“They are leading the table and have probably played the best rugby of any team in the RaboDirect this year,” said Munster coach Tony McGahan. “Consequently, they are leading, and clearly they have an exceptionally good group of young players they have put a lot of faith in.”

Even with home advantage, McGahan recognises his side must bounce back from a disappointing display that yielded an even more disappointing result away to Edinburgh last week.

In particular, he will be looking for a significant improvement in attack, noting that even with 75% of territory his side was unable to make the hard yards pay.

“Stats can be misleading at times, but in general our work-rate and our general application to getting things done at a Munster pace were the things that let us down,” he said.

“Given that with players away and with injuries we are vulnerable in some positions, a 5-1 finish would be a tremendous achievement and would set us up nicely going into what is a very congested and very competitive second block of the season.

“Overall, I’m happy with the development of the squad as well. We probably had a three-tier approach with regard to the squad with all the senior players, obviously Mick O’Driscoll, Peter Stringer and Doug Howlett; we had our middle group of players get game time over the previous few years and our youngest members of the squad are gathering some caps there at the same time.

“We have a good balance and now have a strong platform, a lot of depth and a really strong foundation to work from, going forward to what is an exciting season.”

It has been a tough couple of years injury-wise for Ospreys flanker Joe Bearman, who has finally got a consecutive matches under his belt and is looking forward to the Thomond Park experience.

“These are the games you want to play in as a rugby player. It will be great, a big crowd, hopefully the weather holds out and it will be a great game. Munster will be fuming after last week, they’ll come hard at us but we have an unbeaten record we want to save,” he said.

MUNSTER: J Murphy, D Howlett, D Barnes, L Mafi, D Hurley, I Keatley, D Williams, W du Preez, D Fogarty, S Archer, B Holland, M O’Driscoll, D O’Callaghan, P O’Mahony (captain), N Ronan.

Replacements: S Henry, M Horan, BJ Botha, I Nagle, T O’Donnell, P Stringer, S Deasy, S Zebo.

OSPREYS: B Davies, H Dirksen, T Isaacs, A Bishop, R Fussell, D Biggar, R Webb, D Jones, R Hibbard, C Griffiths, I Gough, I Evans, J Bearman, J Thomas, J Tipuric (captain).

Replacements: M Davies, A Jarvis, J Rees, T Smith, J King, M Morgan, S Parker, K Phillips.

Referee: J Jones (Wales).