Foley happy with Munster’s ‘small steps’

Head coach Anthony Foley will have the pleasure of taking a winning team into Munster’s Guinness Pro12 campaign but he has demanded plenty more hard work from his players ahead of Friday’s season opener at home to Edinburgh.

Foley took charge of his first home game on Friday night in Waterford and saw his players bounce back from a 45-8 hammering at Gloucester the previous week by defeating London Irish 17-5 at a sold-out Regional Sports Centre.

It was a much improved performance from a team with a lot more experience than the rookies who came up short at Kingsholm, featuring solid debuts for summer signings Robin Copeland and Andrew Smith, tries from wing Ronan O’Mahony and scrum-half Duncan Williams and an impressive outing from fly-half Johnny Holland, who kicked a conversion either side of the break and a second-half penalty to see Munster home and keep the Tomás O’Leary-led Exiles scoreless after half-time. The only blot on the landscape was an injury late in the game to inside centre Cian Bohane, whose strong showing was brought to a halt by a knee injury.

A week out from the start of Foley’s first campaign as head coach since succeeding Rob Penney over the summer, the new boss said he was satisfied with where his players were at following their pre-season preparations but the work had to continue.

“Well, we don’t want to be the finished product today,” Foley said. “We want to consistently improve and we’ve said this all along. We need to improve next week, both as individuals and as a team, and as a coaching group.

“We’re learning, the players are learning, trying to figure out how to be more effective and I think we’re getting there, but in order to make big changes it takes small steps so we’re constantly looking for small improvements.”

Certainly the problems that surfaced at Gloucester the previous week were eradicated to a large degree as Munster dominated London Irish in terms of possession and territory, facets that were lacking six days previously.

“It’s good to see a dominant performance like that,” Foley had said on Friday night and though he would have liked to have seen more than the two tries his side’s play merited, he was happy to have got a win under the belt.

Foley also reintroduced tighthead prop Stephen Archer and hooker Duncan Casey following injuries that had curtailed their seasons last spring but his warmest praise was for his starting hooker, Kevin O’Byrne, the UL Bohs front rower who joined Munster in the summer on a training contract.

With Mike Sherry on the sidelines, Damien Varley continuing to nurse a foot condition, Foley was keen to cast his eye over O’Byrne and sub Ger Slattery before giving a 10-minute run to the returning Casey.

“I thought Kevin O’Byrne was probably the player of the match,” Foley said. “I thought he was outstanding. He’s coming from clubland and he’s adapted very well.”

Of the debutants, outside centre Smith and No.8 Copeland, he added: “I thought they were both very good. I thought they put in very solid performances.”

Foley will welcome back several more frontline players to face Edinburgh at Thomond Park on Friday but it is highly unlikely the unfortunate Bohane will be featuring in midfield, however, with the Munster head coach praising the 23-year-old centre’s contribution before he succumbed to the knee injury in the 75th minute.

“He was excellent. He’s a coming player for us. ”