O’Connell returns to give Reds Euro boost
With players falling all round him ahead of the crucial Heineken Cup opening pool game against heavyweight French opposition, Penney has heard the news he and Munster supporters have been waiting for since the New Zealander took over the reins this summer — the talismanic O’Connell was finally ready for action, five months and a week after limping out of a Rabo game at home to Ulster with a serious knee injury.
There had been false dawns for the Ireland and Lions lock, who turns 33 on October 20, the most recent in pre-season when a related back problem surfaced and Penney left the final decision on a return to the field to O’Connell with the mantra “he’ll tell us when he’s ready”.
O’Connell gave his coach the word following training on Wednesday and yesterday he was parachuted straight into Munster’s starting 15 for the massive challenge of fronting up to one of French rugby’s biggest packs in a stadium where his knee problems first surfaced during Ireland’s Six Nations visit in March.
With Donncha O’Callaghan failing a fitness test on a hamstring and Donnacha Ryan being deployed as a blindside flanker at the expense of Dave O’Callaghan, O’Connell will partner Billy Holland in the Munster second row with the new head coach delighted to at last write his name on a teamsheet.
“We’ve always maintained that he’d be back when he felt he was ready,” Penney said. “I think it’s great for us. “It’s great for Irish rugby, for the rugby community to see a player of his calibre back playing again. It was a gradual process. In the interests of the player it had to be.”
Donncha O’Callaghan was not the only enforced absentee in the Munster pack with Wian Du Preez having been ruled out with a knee injury suffered in the defeat to Leinster in Dublin last Saturday night, so Dave Kilcoyne retains the loose head berth alongside hooker Damien Varley, who swaps the bench for the front row in place of Mike Sherry, who rolled an ankle at the Aviva Stadium but is fit enough to be named among the replacements.
The one change in the backs from that 30-15 defeat to Leinster is at full-back, where Ian Keatley gets another run having failed to oust Ronan O’Gara at fly-half. Denis Hurley drops to the bench while Felix Jones will be another full-back returning to action having been named in Munster’s British and Irish Cup side for tomorrow’s trip to Plymouth Albion. Jones underwent shoulder surgery having been injured in the same game last May as O’Connell.
Back in Paris, it promises to be a fiery start to O’Connell’s season, particularly as fellow forward Ryan believes Munster will have to get on the front foot quickly against a very physical Racing Metro pack.
“They’re a very, very good side. They’re very, very tough up front and have a very strong pack so we’re going to have our work cut out in the forwards,” Ryan said. “If we can just focus on our own game and bring a big physicality towards it, we could be in a good place. When you are away from home, especially in France, the crowd can get behind them and give them a big advantage so it is important for us to have a good start no matter who we are playing.
“Having a good start is half the battle really and back our fitness because I think we finished really strongly last weekend [in the defeat to Leinster], and that’s good to take forward this weekend.
“We have fantastic confidence in each other and especially in the way we play, this team is built on belief.
“It is definitely going to be a very tough game this weekend but you have to have some sort of belief in yourself that you can achieve a result over there.”
Meanwhile, Racing Metro have had injury troubles of their own, not least at fly-half where they are missing two frontline number 10s in Jonathan Wiesnieski and new signing Benjamin Dambielle and saw another, Mathieu Belie, join them on the casualty list at the weekend.
With Pumas legend Juan-Martin Hernandez only arriving in Paris on Wednesday after playing for Argentina in the Rugby Championship, the Parisians look set to start Englishman Olly Barkley, an emergency signing from Bath, with Maxime Mechenaud as back-up, as head coach Gonzalo Quesada named his squad last night.
MUNSTER (v Racing Metro): I Keatley; D Howlett (capt), C Laulala, J Downey, S Zebo; R O’Gara, C Murray; D Kilcoyne, D Varley, BJ Botha; B Holland, P O’Connell; D Ryan, S Dougall, P O’Mahony. Replacements: M Sherry, M Horan, S Archer, D O’Callaghan, P Butler, P Stringer, D Barnes, D Hurley.
RACING METRO (squad): Forwards: A Battut, E Ben Arous, T Bianchin, J Cronje, L Ducalcon, C Gérondeau, K Ghezal, B Le Roux, A Lo Cicero, M Matadigo, F Metz, J Qovu, B Sa, D Szarzewski, F Van der Merwe. Backs: O Barkley, Mirco Bergamasco, S Descons, F Estebanez, B Fall, J Imhoff, J Jané, M Machenaud, J Saubade, V Vakatawa.
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