Reddan’s return lifts Blues
Five-and-a-half months on from breaking his fibula and tearing ligaments, Reddan (32) is primed to play some part in the Donnybrook friendly clash and new head coach Matt O’Connor is excited by his return.
“Eoin is good, he should play against Saints at the weekend. I think it wasn’t as serious as first thought, the break. He has worked really hard, he has rehabbed really well,” said O’Connor.
“And he’s incredibly excited about making his return. You wouldn’t imagine the bloke is as experienced as he is the way he has trained the last couple of weeks. He is really looking forward to Friday.
“We have four top-class nines now, when you count Luke McGrath. It’s a position where we’ve been lucky I suppose. With [Isaac] Boss, Reddan and now [John] Cooney and McGrath coming through we’ve got good stocks there,” he said.
The news is equally positive for Cian Healy, who is expected to be fully fit in time to return to action with the rest of the Lions tourists in week three of the RaboDirect Pro12 campaign. After looking set to start as first choice loose head, Healy suffered an ankle injury in the Lions’ final warm-up match against Western Force, which ruled him out of the series. But O’Connor revealed that Healy will soon be fit to return.
“Cian is doing quite well. He is probably a couple of weeks away, but the ankle has responded really well.
“He should be back on the back of the enforced Irish rest, in and around mid-September. It will be a major boost,” he said.
However, O’Connor admitted he may have to rein in Brian O’Driscoll this season to keep him fresh for their bigger games.
“Brian doesn’t want to be wrapped in cotton wool. You need to manage his game time like guys with specific injuries or ageing players, you need to be smart with how you use them to get the best out of them.
“We’ll be trying to keep him as fresh as we can for the biggest games. But he is back running around. He was keener than probably the rest of the Lions to get out and get back involved in the rugby programme and to make sure he didn’t miss out any of the stuff that has been adjusted under the new coach.”
Meanwhile, Denis Hurley described Munster’s pre-season programme as an unqualified success, leading him to believe they can rise back to the top of European rugby. After a mixed campaign last season, disappointment in the Rabo and a surprise passage to the Heineken Cup semi-finals, Hurley believes the province can kick on after a steep learning curve.
Ahead of tomorrow night’s Seat Series friendly against London Irish at Musgrave Park (7pm), Hurley reckons there will be huge competition for back three players with 10 realistic contenders.
“Despite the competition we all help each other in many regards.
“I would prefer not to be selected if I thought that there was somebody else out there performing better.
“The coaches have their game plan that they want to use and obviously there will be occasions when certain players are better suited to that, but there is always opportunity here. Although I wasn’t selected for the last Heineken Cup pool game, I got an opportunity to play in the quarter-final.”
For this year it’s game on. “It’s competition that drives our performance and I think we have started very well in pre-season based on the platform of getting to the semi-final last season.
“Last year was a season of learning and we have lost some quality players who have been around the block and were real leaders in the field. But we do have a great game plan coming together and we understand it at this stage. It’s a matter of getting out there to express ourselves within that framework which is quite open.”
That game plan introduced by Rob Penney in his first year came under public scrutiny when it didn’t appear to be working, but Hurley insisted the players always believed they would overcome whatever difficulties they had to endure.
He said: “Now we’ve gone through the whole motion of seeing what the game plan offers us, how we can use it to enhance our best skills; it makes it exciting because there’s a framework there and we’ve started to understand what we’re trying to do.
“One of Rob’s comments at the end of last season was that he had to break the mould to remould.”
(v London Irish): D Hurley; R O’Mahony, C Laulala, I Dineen, J Murphy; I Keatley, C Sheridan; J Ryan, D Varley (capt), S Archer; D Foley, I Nagle; D O’Callaghan, S Dougall, P Butler.
M Sherry, J Cronin, BJ Botha, D O’Callaghan, B Holland, CJ Stander, N Ronan, J Coughlan, D Williams, JJ Hanrahan, R Scannell, J Holland, C Bohane.
