Denis Hurley: Munster wary of dangerous Dragons

The sunshine beaming down on the pristine Musgrave Park turf as the Munster squad went about its business gave the scene a pre-season feel, but, in the words of Denis Hurley, there is no mistaking his team are primed for the business end of this Guinness Pro12 campaign.

Munster hope and expect their Cork stadium to be packed on Saturday when they face Newport Gwent Dragons in the final game of the regular season. A top-four finish and play-off rugby may be secured and the Welsh visitors, assured of ninth place in the final standings, have nothing to play for but pride, but this will be no dead rubber.

With third-placed Munster, Glasgow Warriors and leaders Ospreys all level on 70 points and Ulster just a point behind, the objective for all four contenders is a home semi-final the following weekend, which means going all out this Saturday to nail down a top-two finish.

“It’s a huge game,” Munster’s inside centre Hurley said. “You couldn’t have expected it to be as tight between the four teams. We’re in third spot, so we need to win to have any chance of targeting a home semi-final, and the opportunity of being at home this weekend gives us a good start. But we still have to go out and perform before anything can happen and then we have to wait on other results.”

That the Dragons will be no whipping boys, despite their lowly standing in the league, complicates any ideas from outside that five points for a bonus-point win are a given. This is an up-and-coming Welsh side which has already beaten Leinster home and away this season, reached a European Challenge Cup semi-final by defeating Stade Francais and Newcastle Falcons and, still fresh in Hurley’s memory, are Munster’s struggles against the men of Gwent.

“We’ve had tough games against them over the last few years. We’ve never had an easy game over there or against them here. They do have a lot of quite talented players coming through in the last season and they offer quite a dangerous platform.

“We struggled against them over in Rodney Parade when we played them as well [eventually winning 38-12 last November]. It took our pack a few good plays and then a couple of good mauls to eventually get over the line for tries and, without those scores, we mightn’t have beat them as well as we did.”

Hurley believes there are positives to be drawn from the 23-23 tie which saw Ulster score seven points in overtime to snatch a crucial two points. That was certainly a source of annoyance for the Munster management and the midfielder said: “You could look at that game in many different ways, and you could say we were lucky to be in the game at certain points.

“I think we dogged it out quite well at certain times and it was important that we got points on the board when we needed them. It was quite a physical game and it’s taken an extra day or two to get the bodies right again. With the little mistakes we’ve looked at in the last day or two, they’re points we want to get right maybe this weekend and I suppose that’s where some of the focus is directed this weekend.”

For Hurley, the emphasis is on the detail, the small defensive flaws in Munster’s performance up in Belfast that need to be put right this Saturday and heading into the play-offs. Certainly, the bigger picture of securing bonus points is not at the forefront of his thoughts.

“That’s only in the back of the mind,” Hurley said. “We have to be mindful of how we start. If we don’t get a good solid start and keep ourselves ticking over on the scoreboard early on, we might be struggling later on, because Dragons are a dangerous outfit and they have nothing to lose coming over here.”