Foley urges Hanrahan to provide missing spark to fire Reds’ challenge
With a Champions Cup defeat at home in Thomond Park to Clermont still haunting the Munstermen as they prepared for the return pool fixture this week, the last thing Foley wanted was to deal with media speculation linking 22-year-old Hanrahan with a move away from the province to English champions Northampton Saints next summer.
The Munster boss had explained Hanrahan’s lack of game time this season in terms of managing the Kerryman’s return from a long-running pelvic problem, osteitis pubis, before insisting the exciting young back had a big future in his native province beyond the expiration of his current contract in June 2015.
By including Hanrahan at inside centre as one of four changes to the side which went down 16-9 last Saturday without scoring a try and despite dominating possession (65%) and territory (69%), Foley has challenged his player to provide the spark which was sorely missing last weekend, although it must be said Hanrahan was left to idle 80 minutes away on the bench as an unsued substitute with his input not required even when Munster were labouring to find a way through Clermont’s brick wall.
Hanrahan will partner the fit again Andrew Smith in a new midfield combination for Munster, while the former will also provide an additional kicking option in tandem with fly-half Ian Keatley as Foley and attack coach Brian Walsh take another stab at unlocking Clermont’s defence, the other backline change coming on the right wing where Andrew Conway returns from a concussion suffered three weeks ago to replaced the injured Gerhard van den Heever.
In the forwards, Foley’s hopes of nursing either of his international looseheads, Dave Kilcoyne and James Cronin, back to match fitness after suffering injuries last weekend were proven overly optimistic and Munster will look to third-choice John Ryan to go head to head with Georgian tighthead Davit Zirakashvili, who replaces Clement Ric in the Clermont front row with Argentine hooker Eusebio Guinazu coming on to the bench as back-up prop having played across the front row at test level for the Pumas.
With Clermont mixing things up further by promoting openside flanker Alexander Lapandry, who made 10 tackles off the bench last week in the last 20 minutes of a sterling rearguard action, at the expense of leading lineout exponent Julien Bonnaire, the Munster pack will be facing different challenges but the onus is on them to raise the stakes in terms of physical intensity and do to the French pack what was done to them in Limerick.
Munster were bullied a week ago and the hurt of that tame performance will have carried them through what was by captain Peter O’Mahony’s account a very cranky week’s training. Now it has to continue into Stade Marcel Michelin and if Foley’s players can cut out the handling errors that undermined their lineout maul and execution all over the pitch, Munster have it in them to make history as the first club since 2008 to win at Clermont in European competition.
Castres and Montpellier have chipped away at the aura of invincibility by winning there in the Top14 in recent months and Munster have no choice but to try and emulate them. Their survival in this pool depends on it.
“They were more accurate at times, they were more physical than us and if we are going to be competing on Sunday that’s something we are going to have to improve on,” O’Mahony said. “We can’t allow that to happen again. If we do we are going to be beaten, guaranteed.
“If we play extremely well we’re always going to be hard to beat. It’s about the process rather than thinking ‘if we do this, if we do that’. It’s about what we can do now to effect how the outcome is rather than looking at the outcome. It’s about the plan during the week rather than what’s going on...
“I know it’s a cliché but it’s moment by moment. We’ve been in it now before, plenty of times and there’s nothing we can do about that.
“These are the games you want to be involved in and we’re lucky enough to get a chance to put it right at the weekend.”
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