Munster hopeful on Test stars injuries
Anthony Foley’s side secured a home play-off tie against Ospreys this weekend without flanker O’Mahony and wing Zebo, who were forced to watch from the Musgrave Park stands as their team-mates trounced the Dragons with an eight-try blitz that featured a Conor Murray hat-trick and scores from Andrew Smith, CJ Stander, Paul O’Connell, Keith Earls and Ronan O’Mahony.
They also had to endure a nervous wait for confirmation from Ospreys’ game at Connacht that the Welsh region had failed to earn the bonus-point win that would have seen them claim second spot behind Glasgow Warriors and bump Munster into third and an undesirable away semi instead.
So Thomond Park it is and the next stage was for head coach Foley to receive news on the fitness of O’Mahony and Zebo when they reported for training this morning.
Zebo was kept out of the fray in Cork to give the back spasms suffered a fortnight ago against Treviso and which forced him out of last weekend’s trip to Ulster further time to settle, while O’Mahony suffered a bang on a hip during a lineout session in training last week, forcing his withdrawal from the Dragons game.
Foley said his captain’s injury was “just restricting him from jumping and powering and hopefully it’ll clear up.
“It looked innocuous enough at the time but we’ve had him examined and we’re waiting to see how he progresses through the weekend and we’ll see whether he can train with us on Monday.”
As for left wing Zebo, Foley added: “Hopefully he gets two weeks to recover and obviously we’re hoping for the best when he turns up on Monday.”
Things are otherwise falling neatly into place for Foley and his ambitions to land a trophy in his first season as Munster head coach.
The last serious piece of silverware to grace the Munster Branch trophy cabinet was the Magners League in 2011 and as recently as January, it looked as if it would take some time to see any type of bauble unsettle the gathering dust.
Yet since his team crashed out of Europe in miserable fashion at Saracens in the penultimate round of the Champions Cup pool phase, they have brushed themselves off and gone all out to reach the Pro12 play-offs.
The results have been impressive, Munster gathering up a head of steam unmatched by their top-four rivals, losing just once, to Ospreys in March, in the final nine rounds and finishing the season as the only team among the play-off quartet to have collected more points in the second half of the league season than they won in the first.
Saturday’s eight-try rout of the Dragons, who also left with a bonus point having breached the Munster line four times, confirmed Foley’s team as the Pro12’s highest scorers, both in terms of points (581) and tries (68) and with the best points difference in the regular season, +214.
A 50-27 romp in the early summer sunshine can sometimes prove an exception to the rule of the campaign that went before it but Munster have gathered some momentum through the spring since that dark January day when Saracens smashed them 33-10 and even O’Connell looked fallible.
When O’Connell, O’Mahony, Zebo and Murray were busy helping Ireland retain their RBS 6 Nations title, the rest of the Munster squad got on very well without them and the reintegration of Test players since their Murrayfield triumph has been smoother than that in the other provinces.
O’Connell and Murray played their part in the dismantling of the Welsh region on Saturday, the scrum-half first diving over in the 17th minute, then grabbing the bonus-point-earning fourth try on 23 minutes before completing his hat-trick in the 64th.
O’Connell, meanwhile, launched himself off the back of another strong driving maul to claim Munster’s fifth of the afternoon as Ian Keatley celebrated his 100th appearance for the province with five conversions from his six attempts at goal. And though Foley’s players did all that was asked of them it was still not cut and dried.
They waited on the pitch to learn their destination for the semi-finals and the relief at learning they would be at home as Connacht kept Ospreys to three points was clear as they and the 8,200 capacity crowd received the news.
Happy days, certainly much happier than back in January and also a year ago when Munster reversed into an away semi-final that would bring Rob Penney’s tenure to an end in Glasgow.
“Yeah, we’re going into it winning games, not losing,” Foley said. “We’ve also guys who are hitting form as well and the injuries are clearing up hopefully and hopefully we’ll get another few back next week.”
F Jones; K Earls (A Conway, 66), A Smith, D Hurley – captain, R O’Mahony; I Keatley (JJ Hanrahan, 55), C Murray (D Williams, 67); J Ryan (D Kilcoyne, 51), E Guinazu (N Scannell, 51), BJ Botha (S Archer, 66); B Holland, P O’Connell (J O’Donoghue, 69); D Ryan, P Butler, CJ Stander (S Dougall, 69).
Butler 56-66
J Tovey (G R Jones, 70); T Prydie, T Morgan (B Nightingale, 63), J Dixon, A Hewitt; D Jones, J Evans (R Rees, 51); B Stankovich (P Price, 66), H Gustafson (R Buckley, 63), B Harris (L Fairbrother, 66); C Hill (M Screech, 57), R Landman — captain; N Crosswell (R Buckley, 22-31; J Benjamin, 66), N Cudd, T Faletau.
Gustafson 20-30
Ben Whitehouse (Wales)
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
