Varley let-off gives Penney lift
On a day when the walking wounded Paul O’Connell, Johne Murphy and Luke O’Dea continued to make progress on the training pitch, it was all good news for Munster, with Varley coming away with a big smile from his disciplinary hearing in Edinburgh.
Munster coach Penney had originally planned to name his squad yesterday for the game against Leinster at the Aviva Stadium but decided to push it back to wait on Varley’s fate and particularly to be able to better assess the prospects of former skipper O’Connell being able to play a role.
Varley appeared before an independent RaboDirect Pro12 Disciplinary Committee as a result of being sent off during the Ospreys match for kicking out and striking the face of an Ospreys player when apparently held in a tackle.
However, the committee decided to uphold the red card issued by the referee but they believed the offence did not warrant further sanction being imposed. However, they did warn the player as to his future conduct citing what they said was a reckless element of the incident.
Varley will now certainly be included in the Munster squad for tomorrow night’s game in Dublin and will be further relieved that he will be able to challenge for a place in Munster’s Heineken Cup squads over the next fortnight, away to Racing Metro next weekend and home to Edinburgh the following week.
It remains to be seen whether Murphy, O’Dea or O’Connell will be called upon by Penney this weekend but the coach is said to be particularly encouraged by the significant progress made by the former skipper in the last 10 days. Having recovered from a long-term knee injury, his progress was hampered in recent weeks by back muscle spasms although he was said to have been particularly impressive when he returned to full physical training this week.
On the assumption there are no setbacks, it’s quite likely he will be named on the replacements today for the derby game.
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