It’s vital vintage Reds turn up, warns Penney

Munster will have to produce the best game they have ever played if they are to overcome Toulon in Marseille next Sunday and reach the Heineken Cup final, head coach Rob Penney has warned.

The two-time winners must travel to Stade Veledrome to face the defending champions and French league leaders, who comprehensively defeated Leinster in the quarter-finals and boast an expensively assembled squad packed with World Cup winners and game-breakers.

Penney, potentially facing his last European fixture as Munster boss before departing for Japan at the end of the season, recognises the last-four clash is one to be relished but following his side’s 32-23 league win over Connacht on Saturday in Galway he underlined the size of the task facing them.

“We’re going to have to play the best game we’ve ever played,” reasoned Penney. “Some individuals are going to have to go beyond where they have been before but that is the challenge for us as a management group, to try and get the group in a frame of mind that they are prepared to do that and it’s probably one of the most exciting components.”

Penney sees part of meeting that challenge as reminding his players both of Munster’s previous meeting with Toulon, a heavy pool defeat at Stade Felix Mayol in January 2011, and of last season’s heartbreaking semi-final defeat to Clermont Auvergne in Montpellier, both setbacks in the south of France from which valuable lessons can be learned and incentives drawn.

“Going to Clermont last year was really exciting but this, playing Toulon, is probably a bit special for me as a coach. I know the other guys, Ian Costello, Anthony Foley and Simon (Mannix) think the same and there is a little bit of history between Toulon and Munster in this competition so we will be trying to uncover every little avenue to tap into those little motivational and inspirational moments to see if we can pull out a magic performance.”

While Munster were scoring a bonus-point win at the Sportsground which saw Penney’s side return to second place in the RaboDirect Pro12 table with two games of the regular season remaining, backs coach Mannix was in Barcelona, scouting Toulon as they scored a 46-31 French Top 14 victory over hosts Perpignan at the Olympic Stadium.

Bernard Laporte’s side are in scintillating form but Penney believes his players are far better equipped to face Toulon than they were a year ago heading into their semi with Clermont.

“Miles ahead,” Penney said. “In terms of their mental appreciation of how to prepare and the belief. There is a genuine understanding after Clermont last year, there was a realisation that this group can compete at that level.

“At half time (in Montpellier) we talked about how we needed to believe in ourselves and play a bit more and as the game went on we were becoming more and more threatening.

“I think they went away from that game with a lot more belief than they had before and that flowed into this year.”

Munster are continuing to plan without fly-half JJ Hanrahan for next weekend’s game and ran scrum-half Conor Murray in the position off the bench for the last seven minutes in Galway while tighthead prop BJ Botha was an unused subhaving missed training early in the week due to illness.

Penney was optimistic outside centre Casey Laulala would return to training this week having suffered a fractured bone in his right hand during the quarter-final win over Toulouse earlier this month.