O’Mahony demands Reds raise game

Munster captain Peter O’Mahony has urged his squad to play every game this season as if it was their last as the province aims to return to the winner’s enclosure in both the Guinness Pro12 and Europe.

While their Heineken Cup bid ended in disappointment with a frustratingly below-par semi-final defeat to eventual champions Toulon in Marseille, Munster’s 2013-14 league campaign began to fall apart at the same time in April and May when, missing an injured O’Mahony, Rob Penney’s side paid the price for sloppy Thomond Park defeats to Glasgow and Ulster, costing them a home semi-final.

Instead they had to go to Glasgow and came out on the wrong side of a 16-15 defeat at Scotstoun, marking the end of Penney’s two-year tenure in Munster. Now with Anthony Foley at the helm, there is a determination to right the wrongs of last season’s unravelling and with the new Pro12 campaign just eight days away, O’Mahony challenged the whole squad to step up.

“I think the guys in the jersey who are picked those weekends when the internationals are away or maybe the weeks after Heineken games when some guys are maybe rested, or even some of the bigger games as well, have to realise how important it is to perform in the jersey and take [their] chance when they get it,” O’Mahony said.

“I think we are going to have a lot of competition this year as well, which is going to push fellas on, but I think it is that when you pull on the jersey you’ve got to play as if it was your last 80 minutes.”

O’Mahony hopes to be back in the Munster line-up by the end of September following reconstructive surgery to both shoulders, having dislocated his left shoulder in the famous Heineken Cup quarter-final victory over Toulouse last April which represented the high water mark for Munster last season.

The problem for the province was what followed, back-to-back league defeats at Thomond Park to Glasgow and a second-string Ulster side. O’Mahony, though, disputed the perception that Munster had not treated the Pro12 with the respect it deserves.

“We’ve always considered it the bread and butter. We were very upset with our performances the year before last when we came sixth.

“It was a big goal for us last year to improve where we ended up and we ended up fourth and were very disappointed with two or three performances that [otherwise] might have ended up with us finishing second or even better.”

With head coach Foley wanting to see more Munster players earning their places in the Ireland set-up, O’Mahony said achieving consistency in the league and in Europe is as vital to individual ambition as it is to the province’s cause.

“I think more guys have to prove themselves. You’re not going to get selected to make up numbers. You need to get selected for performances — and consistency of performances probably more importantly. And obviously for us to progress the more internationals we have in the team the better and the better the standard of training is etc.

“So it would be a big goal for us to have that consistency of performances, that guys are being seen more often in a winning team and are in the shop window for the Irish coaching staff.

“I think it comes back to consistency, how you get to that consistency. So whether it’s mindset or whether it’s your physical training or outside of rugby and how you deal with that kind of stuff, at the end of the day it’s about consistency of good performances to put yourself in that position.

“It’s different ways for different guys. Some guys have to brush up on their physical make-up and other guys might have to brush up on their mental capacity and their learning, so it’s different for different guys but it comes back to consistency.”

Munster’s first step to reaching that level will be to bounce back from last week’s 45-8 friendly defeat at Gloucester and they will get the chance to wrap up their pre-season preparations with a win tomorrow night in Waterford when London Irish provide the opposition for the annual SEAT Challenge.

Foley, still without the services of his Test tourists to Argentina, has made nine changes to last week’s inexperienced side, reintegrating Munster’s Emerging Ireland representatives as well as handing debuts to new signings Robin Copeland and Andrew Smith ahead of next week’s Pro12 opener against Edinburgh.

Australian centre Smith will make his first appearance for Munster since his switch from Super Rugby’s the Brumbies and will partner Cian Bohane in midfield, while in the half-backs scrum-half Cathal Sheridan starts alongside Johnny Holland.

In a pack led by captain Donncha O’Callaghan, Munster welcome back tighthead prop Stephen Archer for the first time since he suffered a neck injury in March and he will join a front row featuring last weekend’s replacements John Ryan and hooker Kevin O’Byrne.

Billy Holland takes over from Sean McCarthy in the second row alongside O’Callaghan while the back row will see CJ Stander switch to blindside to make way for Copeland, with Dougall coming in at openside.

MUNSTER: J Murphy; R O’Mahony, A Smith, C Bohane, D Sweetnam; J Holland, C Sheridan; J Ryan, K O’Byrne; S Archer, D O’Callaghan – captain; B Holland; CJ Stander, S Dougall, R Copeland.

Replacements: G Slattery, D Casey, A Cotter, BJ Botha, S McCarthy, J Madigan, S Buckley, B O’Mahony, D Williams, D Johnston, I Dineen, R Scannell.