Two routes but room for just one at summit

IN taking different routes to successful starts to this Heineken Cup campaign, today’s Pool One showdown between Scarlets and Munster could well be seen as a showcase for quite different approaches to team rebuilding.

That the two unbeaten sides playing this afternoon for the first game in a back-to-back series that may prove pivotal to the outcome of the group are slugging it out in Llanelli and not southern France, where Castres face last year’s finalists Northampton Saints, is a source of some satisfaction in itself.

Something though, has to separate these Celtic cousins and it could come down to a choice between Scarlets’ Extreme Makeover philosophy and what a cynical eye might view as Munster’s Steptoe and Son approach.

Tony McGahan has been successfully integrating new blood this season into an experienced starting XV and this afternoon will start Simon Zebo on the wing as the latest Heineken Cup debutant this season behind Danny Barnes, Conor Murray and Peter O’Mahony.

Those three have been poster boys for the policy and while Zebo is tipped to follow — and given his form in the Rabo Direct Pro12 of late, he should — he nevertheless starts today’s game as a crisis measure, attempting to fill the breach left by last week’s season-ending ruptured Achilles tendon to Doug Howlett.

So much for the Son, Howlett had been on the Steptoe side of the success story that delivered wins over Northampton and Castres. The All Blacks’ record try scorer, 33, had been back into a rich seam of finishing form, his tries against both the English and French big guns significant stepping stones to victories in Limerick and Toulouse. The contributions of fellow veterans Paul O’Connell and Ronan O’Gara have been just as meaningful, justifying the Munster coach’s gradual integration of youth and retention of faithful retainers.

By McGahan’s own words this week, Scarlets have taken a very different approach to rebuilding and have been rewarded with wins at home to Castres and away at Northampton, the latter also bringing with it a valuable away bonus point that now separates Nigel Davies’ side from Munster at the top of the pool.

“I think they are an excellent side,” McGahan said, “they went through a period where they dipped. They had been in three Heineken Cup semi-finals. Previously they played a real attractive style of rugby and they have gutted the place and brought in all of these youngsters over the last three years.

“They have taken some hits and probably lost a lot of close games but they have learned a lot from that. They have built a strong squad and you have seen evidence with their input into the Wales squad and the way they played this season that they are a side that is ready to make a charge at the quarter-finals stages.”

Those young backs, the likes of full-back Liam Williams wing George North, centres Scott Williams and Jon Davies and fly-half Rhys Priestland, now represent the future of not just Scarlets but Welsh rugby as a whole and McGahan readily acknowledges the threat they pose.

“We are going there this week with a lot of respect and need to be on our game with regards to what they are doing. Their forward play has picked up over the last two or three weeks, their scrum has been stable to make sure they can get parity in that area, they have an excellent maul and they have Priestland, who is kicking exceptionally well.

“But if you look at North, Davies, Williams in the back three, they have a really exciting back line attack that certainly doesn’t have any fear.”

The McGahan thesis seems to be that Scarlets’ young guns have been learning the hard way, “forfeiting”, in the argot of a Premier League football manager, a few seasons before finding their feet. Given the outpouring of soul-searching that followed last season’s miserable European campaign, that is clearly not the Munster way.

It is up to Munster’s young and old alike to prove the point in these next two games but, given their convincing performances and knack for capitalising on opposition mistakes shown in the opening two rounds, Scarlets will start favourites on home soil to continue that sparkling start.

If they do prove too strong this afternoon, the hard lessons dished out to Munster’s new wave will have only eight days to sink in.