A lesson learned for Munster

Rob Penney backed his inexperienced Munster players to learn the valuable lessons of their near-miss at Ravenhill as the province aims to get back on track on Saturday at home to Newport Gwent Dragons.

RaboDirect Pro12 rugby will resume this weekend following the tragic death of Ulster player Nevin Spence, his father and brother at their family farm last Saturday, 24 hours after the centre had played for Ulster Ravens against Munster A.

Ulster will sit this weekend out, with their away game in Italy at Zebre yesterday postponed to a later date, but while still coming to terms with the loss of a player well known to personnel in all three other Irish provinces, Munster, Leinster and Connacht must all go back to work.

Munster had on Sunday morning expressed the province’s profound sadness at the Spence family’s tragedy, while a moment of silence will be observed at all RaboDirect Pro12 matches this coming weekend. Leinster head coach Joe Schmidt yesterday said: “Preparations this week have been greatly affected by Nevin Spence’s tragic passing. Nevin was an extremely talented player and a hugely respected and popular young man within our squad, especially among all those players who played with him at underage representative levels and in the Ireland senior and Wolfhounds panels in recent years. The rugby, sporting and wider public have all been greatly affected by this tragedy. And it goes without saying that the thoughts and prayers of the squad — and everyone in Leinster Rugby — are with the Spence family and all of our friends in Ulster Rugby.”

Leinster host Edinburgh this Saturday evening at the RDS with hooker Rochardt Strauss a doubt for the game, having suffered a head knock in the narrow win at Benetton Treviso last Saturday. The European champions could be boosted, however, by the return of Ireland backs Gordon D’Arcy and Rob Kearney.

Munster, meanwhile, may well be able to reintroduce their Ireland players Simon Zebo, Donnacha Ryan and Peter O’Mahony at Thomond Park on Saturday night after their unbeaten start to the season came to an end in Belfast on Friday with a 20-19 loss to Ulster. Prop John Ryan is also set to return to the fold after a three-week loan spell at London Irish, where he made two Premiership appearances off the bench for the Exiles.

Winger Luke O’Dea (ankle) and No.8 James Coughlan (groin) look to be serious doubts to face the Dragons, however, having limped out at Ravenhill during the first half.

While the game marked the return to Munster colours of Ireland internationals Ronan O’Gara, Keith Earls and Conor Murray, Penney also saw the game as money in the bank for the less battle-hardened players in his squad, who contributed to some impressive periods of play that bode well for the development of a more expansive game plan.

“Every opportunity and every experience is unique in its own way and there’s things that you can only learn on the footy track,” Penney said. “We’ve got some young men here and they’re learning rapidly and there’s things in this group that you can’t coach and that was evident (on Friday night) about how hard they were prepared to work for each other.

“That’s something we’re seeing in the group often and we’ve just got to build on our rugby knowledge and our rugby experience and this experience is just going to add another layer to their knowledge and depth.”

With Penney and his backroom staff having set their players a target of four wins from their opening five games, Munster need to get back on track when they welcome the Dragons to Thomond Park, the following week’s trip to Ospreys marking the end of the block. Despite suffering their first reverse of the campaign and seeing Ulster dominate possession for long periods of Friday’s game, the new head coach said he was pleased with Munster’s defensive efforts to this point.

“I thought when a team plays a bit narrower on you, they retain possession but don’t necessarily breach. I think we only got breached three times in the game so our defence was robust. We had to put up with some phases but I don’t think they were overly threatening.”