Munster to drip-feed stars back into squad

As much as Munster could do with the help of their international brigade following their opening-day Guinness Pro12 home defeat, Ian Costello has warned supporters not to expect the entire cavalry to come charging to the rescue this weekend.

The need for a quick rebound is paramount given the slapdash nature of their 14-13 Thomond Park loss to Edinburgh last Friday, described by head coach Anthony Foley as an “absolutely poor physical performance”.

And there will be no favours on Friday evening when physically imposing Treviso play host at Stadio Monigo on the back of a thumping at Ospreys last weekend and who are looking to beat Munster for the third straight season on home soil.

Yet while some more of Munster’s frontline players, who toured with either the Ireland Test squad to Argentina or Emerging Ireland to Romania, will be unveiled for their seasonal debuts in Italy, Costello said playing them all at once for their first hit-outs would be a mistake, particularly when Edinburgh exposed the lack of match sharpness of many of those who appeared in round one.

“The first thing I want to make really clear is that we prepared really well for that game and prepared to win it,” Costello said of last Friday’s defeat. “Our team and our squad were strong enough to win that but on the day, even under-performing, we should have won it. There’s no excuses, that’s what I want to make clear and put a line under that.”

Munster were represented by eight players on the two-Test tour to Argentina, including Ireland captain Paul O’Connell, while another 11 squad members travelled to Romania.

Test wing Simon Zebo and Emerging tourists Sean Dougall, John Ryan, Billy Holland, Andrew Conway, Ian Keatley and Johne Murphy all started last week’s opener, with Tommy O’Donnell and Dave Foley appearing off the bench, while Robin Copeland missed out having picked up a knock to the ribs in the pre-season win over London Irish.

Number eight Copeland looks set to be on tomorrow’s early morning flight to Italy, while of the remaining tourists, Costello said “the likes of Paulie [O’Connell], James Cronin, Conor [Murray] and Felix Jones” would be re-integrated “over the next couple of weeks”, either in Treviso or for the following week’s visit of Zebre to Limerick.

“I suppose from our point of view if, for example, you bring in six guys en bloc, we have a problem of six guys not rugby ready and not match fit and you’re not in a position to change all of them, so we’re trying to get the right balance in the starting side and on the bench.

“But yeah, we expect to get a couple of the high profile international players back and that gives us a lift but the responsibility is still on everybody else to up their performance from last Friday. We’ve put that review behind us so now what we’re trying to do is, I suppose, build and be positive towards this week which is going to be a very difficult game away to Treviso as we’ve seen in the recent past.”

Munster twice returned from the Stadio Monigo without even a losing bonus point during Rob Penney’s two-season tenure as head coach, losing 34-10 in February 2013 and 29-19 a year ago.

Costello, though, points to a much-changed club this season.

“We’ve looked at it. They had 23 players into the squad and 19 out. They have a new coach, they’re talking about communicating in two languages and they have their own issues but it’s their first home game and they’ve beaten us the last two times there and we’ve struggled quite badly. What we’re looking at with this is that it is an opportunity to rectify this straight away.”