'I have enormous confidence in our pack': Andy Friend ready to take on Munster up front

Connacht head coach Andy Friend

It was no surprise to hear Andy Friend talk about how relaxed he felt earlier this week.

With their St Stephen’s Day derby against Ulster falling foul of the pandemic, the Connacht coach was able to switch off over the Christmas. A ‘wee dram’ while watching Love Actually one day, the COPE swim the next. What’s not to like?

Apart from the movie, of course. Yuck.

Still, he must be full of the festive joys at this stage, his mood helped in no small part by confirmation yesterday that Jack Carty has recovered sufficiently from a foot injury suffered against Leicester Tigers to take his place in the line-up for the visit of Munster.

It’s all but impossible to overstate his out-half’s importance to the team at this stage. Carty has started every game for Connacht this term. He was superb at Welford Road and a few months back when his side lost out to Munster in Limerick.

That he shone on days when the team struggled and ultimately came up short is a hugely encouraging sign and no doubt but that Andy Farrell will be feeling a little better now too that the Athlone man is due to report for duty.

Farrell is just a month out from Ireland’s first Six Nations outing and Carty is, due to all sorts of contrivances, the only one of his prospective tens to see any action over the Christmas period. This is not a good thing, obviously.

It may be that Johnny Sexton would have been good to go last week against Munster, or this week up in Belfast, but it is late November and that defeat of the All Blacks since we have seen him with Joey Carbery since succumbing to sick bay too.

For Carty and Connacht, the question is whether they can deal with another punishingly physical performance akin to those which ultimately proved beyond them in recent games when Leinster and Leicester both claimed wins.

Munster rolled up their sleeves in a similar manner when overcoming Friend’s men in the URC back in October but Friend is adamant that, for all their flash and fancy, his lads can turn the screw on others in the manner done unto them.

“I do believe we can. One of the things with our whole game style that we’re trying to play, it shows the belief we have with it that we’re going to stick with it. I think that’s a learning for us, and the two areas that teams come at it us is through the setpiece. They see that as their avenue to get into the game and pull us back from us doing what we’re doing.

“That’s a Munster style as well, but I have enormous confidence in our forward pack and (forwards coach) Dewald Senekal that as we go through the season and get better at our game style, we’ll see less and less times where the opposition target it, because the crack won’t be there.”

They won’t be the only side looking to confront and confound some doubts this evening. Munster’s place in the grand scheme of things is, if anything, more uncertain given the approaching departures of Johann van Graan and Stephen Larkham.

It’s a state of affairs that could easily prove unsettling this next six months.

“I hadn’t thought about it in any other capacity than the two coaches had made a decision about what their future is,” said Friend. “What that does to Munster, I’d be hazarding a guess. We just know they’re a good footie side.

“They have quality across the board, they’re ambitious in the way they want to play. Johann and Steve won’t want to leave without winning something, so they’re going to be energised around that.”