Toulon won’t fear us, admits Penney

Munster head coach Rob Penney has admitted Heineken Cup semi-final opponents Toulon have nothing to fear from his side going into Sunday’s showdown at Marseille’s Stade Velodrome.

Defending champions and French Top14 leaders Toulon are red-hot favourites to make an instant return to the European final thanks to their star-studded and physically imposing squad as well as the home advantage they will enjoy in southern France at a stadium less than hour’s drive from their own Stade Felix Mayol.

Despite his side demolishing four-time champions Toulouse in the quarter-finals in a six-try rout at Thomond Park earlier this month, Penney yesterday made little effort to talk up his province’s chances of a surprise on the road this weekend when having talked up Toulon’s impressive array of internationals he was asked what the French side’s view of Munster might be.

"I don’t think they will fear us at all," Penney said. "It might have a different feeling had we been playing at Thomond Park because of Munster’s history and the way in which it is able to dismantle opposition there. They won’t fear us going down there. I’m sure they won’t.

"They wouldn’t have seen anything to be fearful of with the calibre of people they have got available to them."

While his words may have had an element of kidology about them as he prepares to go head-to-head with Bernard Laporte’s expensively-assembled rugby galacticos nor did the New Zealander expect Toulon to approach Sunday’s clash with anything approaching complacency despite his claim the French side had already booked its accommodation for the May 24 final at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium.

"It would be dangerous for any team to underestimate any other team and I don’t think they will do that because of the calibre and experience that they have got, they will just know how to get themselves in the right frame of mind for a big game.

"They have talked about doing the [league and European] double. They don’t want to let it slip through not getting the right preparation done. They will be up for the challenge and I don’t think they will be frightened by anything that we have got."

Penney, looking ahead to what could be his final Heineken Cup fixture before leaving at the end of the season to coach in Japan, said a victory in Marseille on Sunday "would be an amazing achievement for the group" but that his squad were in much better shape now than a year ago when they went down narrowly to Clermont Auvergne on French soil in Montpellier at the same stage of the competition.

"I’d like to think [we’re a better side]. We have got some long-term injured guys that aren’t here that would have been adding some depth but across the board we’re a better side, we have got a lot better understanding about what we are trying to do and the self-belief and the confidence has grown exponentially since last year. We’re going to need every minute of it, every ounce of it."

Munster could well be in for a long and tiring afternoon against a team that produced a power-packed and immensely physical display to defeat Leinster in the quarters, but Penney is heartened by the confidence his players gained a year ago in running Clermont close.

"The opposition are similar in some ways. They have got a great deal of quality. The one thing that I’d like to think the Munster boys have now is a belief in themselves and when they need to go to the well they know there is going to be water there because they are going to have to go there a few times on Sunday and that belief not only in what we’re trying to do as a team but in their make-up and in themselves is going to be critical to us getting close. If we are close, then anything is possible."