O’Donnell and Henry eye Irish spot in big clash

RABODIRECT PRO12:

And adding considerable spice to this evening’s clash is the head to head between opposing number sevens Chris Henry and Tommy O’Donnell.

The sad loss of the injured Sean O’Brien has left national coach Joe Schmidt with a very unwelcome void on Ireland’s open side flank and now Henry and O’Donnell, just back from long term injuries, are the front runners for the number seven jersey in the Six Nations opener against Scotland on February 2.

Accordingly, Schmidt may well regard the contest as a final trial between the talented pair. Henry is regarded as more of a groundhog, a player in his element at the break down. While O’Donnell is also adept in this area, his brilliance as a ball carrier puts many in mind of the Tullow Tank. Several others on both teams will be all out to catch the eye but, as is always the case on interpro occasions, the main focus will be on achieving a result that will keep their Rabo Pro 12 ambitions on track.

Munster go into the game on 43 points, seven ahead of second placed Leinster and 10 clear of Ulster in fifth. Obviously, it’s a game the leaders can afford to lose whereas for Ulster, defeat would be a major setback in their bid to qualify for the knock-out stages, preferably with a home semi-final. After their poor performance in losing 19-6 to Leinster at the RDS last week, coach Mark Anscombe has made six changes and is delighted to welcome back a formidable trio in John Afoa, Iain Henderson and Chris Henry with former Munster number eight Nick Williams available to spring from the bench. However the bad news for home fans is that South African powerhouse Johann Muller sustained a leg injury during the week and is a non-starter tonight.

“It’s good that so many are back in the mix but Henderson, Henry and Williams have been out for six weeks and so are short of game time”, said Anscombe whose contract is up at the end of the season and so is in much the same situation as his fellow Kiwi and Munster counterpart Rob Penney.

“We need to win this one to give us momentum going into Europe the following two weeks against Montpellier and Leicester and if playing Munster at Ravenhill doesn’t get us excited, then nothing will”.

Only Ronan O’Mahony, Donncha O’Callaghan and James Coughlan of the side that beat Connacht last week have retained their starting places with Munster. Penney has named a near full-strength forward pack with Dave Kilcoyne and Stephen Archer starting in the prop positions ahead of James Cronin and BJ Botha while Andrew Conway, Ivan Dineen and Ronan O’Mahony are accommodated in a back line lacking familiar names like Keith Earls and James Downey while there is no place in the 23 for man of the moment JJ Hanrahan.

Whereas virtually every Munster supporter has at least one eye on next week’s Heineken Cup clash with Gloucester, Penney insists he hasn’t even thought about that game, stressing “interpro matches are big enough on their own without worrying about what’s beyond that.”

The extent of the challenge facing Munster against a fired-up home side is demonstrated by the fact Ulster’s only loss at Ravenhill since February was against Glasgow in September.