Keatley: Munster lads have great belief in me

Munster’s Ian Keatley says it was his teamates belief in him that helped him bounce back against Gloucester last weekend.

The outhalf who has been battling with JJ Hanrahan for the 10 jersey was named in Joe Schmidt’s squad for the RBS Six Nations Championship next month.

He was speaking in Limerick ahead of this weekend’s final Heineken Cup game against Edinburgh at Thomond Park.

Keatley added 10 points from the boot in the 7-20 win in Gloucester which see’s Rob Penney’s men already into the quarter finals of the competition.

Already in this season’s European competition he has racked up 54 match points, despite being injured for the trip to Perpignan in December.

He admits though it’s been a rollercoaster year that he would like to cap off in style.

“I had a poor performance against Ulster in the first 40 minutes but in the second half there I managed to brush myself off and regained my composure again,” Keatley said.

“I was really happy with the way I bounced back in the win over Gloucester at the weekend, the lads here just rallied behind me and they had great belief in me and I repaid them with my performance against Gloucester.”

Back in October there were questions asked about the squad and coach following their shock 29-23 loss to Edinburgh at Murrayfield.

It was the Scottish side’s first win in the Heineken Cup in 18 months having lost all of their pool games in the previous season.

Keatley knows Munster owe them one.

“We do but we can’t be too caught up on them, we have showed enough this year that if we just concentrate on our own game, we will most likely come out on top,” he said.

“Our defence is the number one reason for that, we have conceded less points in both Rabo and Heineken Cup.”

“People say if you want to win cups, your defence is the backbone to that.”

Although Munster have qualified for the quarter finals, they haven’t yet secured the all-important home quarter final and Ian says there isso much hunger there for that.

“It’s out of our hands but the pressure is off, clearly it would be nice to repay the fans by getting them the home quarter final.”

“We will know more on Sunday at kick off on what we will need to do and if all it takes is a win, hopefully we can do that and if we need four tries we will look to get that as well,” Keatley added.