Hurley: We can’t allow dangermen to counter-attack

DENIS HURLEY knows the Northampton Saints back three pose a threat — but he isn’t intimidated.

Back in his favoured number 15 jersey, Hurley has earned praise from coaches and players for his recent contribution and he aims to help Johne Murphy and Simon Zebo make their own mark on today’s tie.

Acknowledging the Northampton potential to strike from deep, with Ben Foden, Jamie Elliott and Vasily Artemyev all dangerous given space, Hurley will be looking for Munster to repeat what they achieved in round one at Thomond Park.

“I think what we did the first game was to compete with them as much as possible and not give them the freedom,” he said.

“The one try from that area they got against us was due to the fact that we weren’t as hard at them as we should have been. We gave them a bit of space and allowed them run at us and that’s when they’re most dangerous.

“We’ll go into this game with the same type of thought process of what we want to do; that is really trying to compete on 50-50 ball with them and making sure they don’t get any free space.

“A lot of it is to control the ball. When we kick to them we kick on our terms and it’s not kicking long for the sake of kicking long, that we’re finding grass and making sure they have to turn before coming back at us. It is a balance of kicking right and making sure we have a strong chase-line as well.

“It would be very satisfying to keep these guys under control.

When you have international players of that quality, it’s our main concern to cancel out their game plan.

“We did that to 95% in the first game and hopefully we can go one better and kill their counter-attack this week. It is probably their number one strike option.”

Hailed by skipper Paul O’Connell for his performances against Castres and Treviso, Hurley pointed out that Munster got the jolt they probably needed when hammered by Ulster in the RaboDirect Pro12.

“They [Ulster] have sprung off that and kicked off on the Heineken Cup big time. That was a disappointing game personally and for the whole squad.

Hurley believes Munster aren’t far away from making the latest backline combination work.

“This is just about the third game in a row that we’ve had pretty much the same backline and it does take a bit of time, takes a bit of time to judge our lines and abilities, but I think we’re quite close to making it work.

“Once or twice, gaps opened up but all of a sudden they were gone. We’ve had a look at a few things, had a chat at different levels to be a bit more patient and get the balance right. We’re nearly there, and when it happens we’ll be a fairly dangerous team.”

The full back believes Munster won’t be perturbed by the atmosphere at a sell-out game.

“I suppose it will be a fairly intimidating place but that’s the best thing about playing Heineken Cup rugby, it’s that you draw crowds to big games like this and then feed off it. I hope there is a strong atmosphere and that we can feed off it.”