Scannell: We must keep up the pressure in quest for home semi

Munster resume their mission to secure a home Guinness PRO14 semi-final against Cardiff Blues tomorrow night with Niall Scannell admitting all the province can do is keep the pressure on the conference leaders and hope they slip up.

Three rounds remain in the fight for play-off places with the conference toppers after 21 rounds of the league campaign claiming a home semi-final with a week’s rest as the second and third-place teams battle to join them in the last four.

Munster are all too familiar with the consequences of away semi-finals in the league, having lost to Leinster at the RDS last season, but Glasgow go into this final phase in pole position, three points ahead of Munster in Conference A.

And hooker Scannell knows grabbing that home semi rather than settling for second by holding off the claims of both the Blues and Connacht could make all the difference for a successful play-off campaign.

“It’s huge and that’s why we have to keep putting pressure on Glasgow,” Scannell said. “I think we found that it was one of the things that we can make life a lot easier for ourselves if we have a home semi. But if we don’t get a home semi, that’s the situation and you have to adapt.

“Don’t get me wrong, that’s what we’re pushing for and that would make our lives a lot easier, but we have got to keep putting the pressure on Glasgow. We’re not really in the driving seat at the moment, we have to keep applying the pressure, hope they slip up. That starts now with Cardiff, then Treviso and we have Connacht last. We have three games now to really apply the pressure and we have to start that in Cork on Friday night.”

Niall Scannell is the first player out on the pitch. pic.twitter.com/MTu0QoX8mS

— Murray Kinsella (@Murray_Kinsella) March 16, 2019

Munster will have to prepare in the aftermath of a bruising and hard-fought European quarter-final victory at Edinburgh last Saturday, their six-day turnaround after a winning performance built on a physical effort that saw 200 tackles made at Murrayfield including a final defensive set that stretched into 35 phases without the ball before the final whistle blew with a turnover tackle by Arno Botha.

Scannell lauded that effort but is mindful that Cardiff enjoyed a weekend off while Munster were toiling at the coalface.

“They’ve had an extra week, they’ve been preparing for two weeks for us. We’ll know what an extra week looks like on Friday. You’d love... there are times on the morning of some games you’d love an extra day’s training, but they keep coming thick and fast and that’s pro rugby. We have to keep adapting to that. It’s good teams in the PRO14 week after week and you go into Europe for what seems like a huge block and before you know it you’re straight back in the PRO14. That’s just the way it is and that’s just what we have to adapt to.

They’re an unbelievable team — especially their physicality. They’re flying high at the moment, in terms of how many games they’ve won this year.

"They’re the last team to have beaten us in Cork as well and they hammered us over there at the start of the season.

“That’s just the reality of it, that’s how good a team they are. They have lads coming back from that Wales (Grand Slam) campaign too, that are on a high. We know we have a huge challenge coming. They’ve been preparing for this for two weeks, they are not a team with nothing to play for, they have everything to play for.

“They’re trying to get into Europe and trying to make the qualifiers for the PRO14. We’d be unbelievably foolish to look past them in any way. We certainly won’t and that’s why we’re back with a thud this week to get working again.”