Kidney: No need to fear Shed

Declan Kidney will be urging his players to feed off the hostile atmosphere that is certain to flow from the Gloucester supporters tomorrow evening.

Gloucester’s ‘Shed’ at Kingsholm is almost as famous in European rugby as Thomond Park and Kidney believes his side need to absorb that and use it to their advantage.

“It’s the reverse of our own place, the Shed generates a great atmosphere but what you have to do is look forward to it, not let it consume you,” said Kidney.

“If you go in fearing it, then it will just consume you and the game will pass you by. So better to go in saying: 'Aren't these the days I trained for?’

“It’s going to be difficult, no question. You only have to look at our last two visits there to realise that.”

Munster have been beaten in their two previous visits to Kingsholm and while they have wins over Ulster and Connacht behind them in recent weeks they will need to show a marked improvement to triumph.

“We have to be very wary of turnovers. At least 25% of their tries come from turnovers so we can't afford to let that happen,” said the Munster coach.

“There are other areas that we’ve worked on to improve and Saturday will tell us if we’ve managed that.

“As you would expect at this level, a side like Gloucester can attack you in most parts of the game.

“They’re well-able to play from side-to-side, as they’ve shown in the past. And they play it up front as well. They can challenge you in most facets.

“They have a good kicking game in Ryan Lamb and they have a very good counterattack game.

“They are just what you would expect at this stage, they’re a very good all-round team,” he added.

Munster trained in Limerick yesterday and stayed overnight before flying out to England today ahead of tomorrow’s quarter-final clash.

Article courtesy of The Evening Echo newspaper