Munster sweat on Casey and Varley ahead of Sale date

Munster are keeping their fingers crossed that a hooker crisis can be warded off over the next week and Duncan Casey and Damien Varley are available for the European Champions Cup clash away to Sale on Saturday week.

Casey had to go off with a rib injury during Saturday’s victory over Leinster while Varley suffered a recurrence of the foot injury that delayed his involvement in the opening matches of the season.

Skills and attack coach Ian Costello revealed yesterday that Casey has a chance of figuring against Scarlets in the Guinness Pro12 game at Thomond Park on Friday. However, Varley is ruled out and both players will be assessed over the coming days. This news comes on the back of Mike Sherry’s long-term absence.

Eusebio Guinazu, the Argentinian here until the end of December, is likely to come into the reckoning having figured in the second half of the A team’s win over Leinster at the weekend while Kevin O’Byrne also did well with the A team and Niall Scannell is set to return after injury.

Munster skipper Peter O’Mahony also showed no ill-effects after his second-half appearance at the Aviva on Saturday.

“He showed how delighted he was to be back and with the result at the end although I guess he wasn’t too happy with being caught by the photograph showing that, but he’s a massive addition to the side,” said Costello.

“He’s like Paulie, he’s a driver, he drives standards, he challenges standards, you know the way he plays in terms of his physicality and he brings an extraordinary skill set as well. We need four or five drivers on the field and he’s one of those.”

Neither Costello nor any member of the Munster management was ever likely to respond in kind to the post-match comments of Leinster coach Matt O’Connor after Saturday’s game.

“We just focused on what we felt were the key areas and that led to a bit of frustration from Leinster,” he stated. “We were very strong at the break down, we were very strong in the tackle contest.

“From the dialogue and chat on the field, they became increasingly frustrated at what they felt were illegal tactics in slowing up the ball. But I thought we were exceptionally accurate, very disciplined. We committed minimum of numbers to break down and we made sure that they had to put more bodies in there than we did. Obviously, Matt O’Connor’s comments reflect that.

“From a defensive point of view, we have huge pride in displaying discipline, and discipline isn’t just around the referee. It’s about knowing when to go into the tackle contest, when to stay out. We’re trying to keep players on their feet and I thought we did that exceptionally well. The referee was under a lot of pressure in the later stages and we’re delighted at how we coped. We had 13 players on the field and Leinster would have felt we had 15.”