Second row injuries may force Graham Rowntree into market

INJURY ISSUES: Munster Head Coach Graham Rowntree with the media. Pic Credit ©INPHO/Ben Brady

Graham Rowntree may be forced to seek short-term replacement forwards following a costly narrow defeat to Leinster on Tuesday night that saw a trio of Munster’s first-choice pack go down injured.

The reigning URC champions may be finishing 2023 with one more league point, 24, after eight rounds of the season, than the 23 they collected from their 10 games to the end of 2022 but Rowntree’s squad has taken a physical pummelling in the process, and nowhere greater than in the second row.

Academy lock Edwin Edogbo was the latest to drop on St Stephen’s night as Munster were beaten 9-3 by their interprovincial rivals at a storm-swept Thomond Park while hooker Diarmuid Barron (foot) and loosehead prop Dave Kilcoyne (shoulder) and centre Alex Nankivell (foot) also failed to finish the match.

The squad will report back for duty at Munster’s High Performance Centre in Limerick this morning to begin preparations for next Monday’s New Year’s Day trip to Connacht at The Sportsground in Galway with their head coach waiting anxiously for the medical update from an attritional derby defeat.

Rowntree said in the immediate aftermath of the loss that Edogbo’s injury, a second Achilles issue in as many seasons, was looking serious with the 21-year-old from Cobh joining a quartet of locks already in the treatment room - South African World Cup winners Jean Kleyn (eye) and RG Snyman (chest/shoulder), Cian Hurley (ankle/Achilles) and Fineen Wycherley (shoulder).

Ireland starter Tadhg Beirne was rested under IRFU player welfare guidelines for the Leinster clash while the other fit senior second row Tom Ahern is currently being deployed as cover at blindside flanker for shoulder-injury victim Peter O’Mahony with Rowntree saying last week that Ahern was being earmarked as number six longer-term.

Recognised No.8 Gavin Coombes has started the last two matches in the second row having moved there during games if necessary throughout his senior career and started one game as a lock in each of the last two seasons.

The Skibbereen back-rower came in for praise from his boss on Tuesday night but Rowntree also said he would assess the possibility of bringing in some short-term signings as he did last season when Scotsman Kiran McDonald was brought in for three matches from November to early January.

“Potentially,” Rowntree said on Tuesday night… “yeah, we’ll have a look at that. Gav’s moved into the second row from the back row before, a huge work-rate doing that. We’ll have a look at that.

“I’m not going to start stressing about that yet, that will be tomorrow’s job. Tonight I need to calm down, watch the game again, see what we can get better at with what we’ve got.” 

Rowntree did see positives in defeat amid the injuries, in particular the performance of new Irish-qualified tighthead prop Oli Jager on his first start, going head to head with Ireland loosehead Andrew Porter.

“It was a ding-dong battle. I’ve been really pleased with Oli and how he’s fitted in. He’s going to be a special player for this club. A huge man, good composure, very good to coach. Very good in his micro chats with the young lads and the guys around him.

“That was a ding-dong and they were able to bring on Sheehan, Jenkins, Baird, you know, we didn’t have those resources and we dug in there, particularly at the end of the game. Jeremy (Loughman) gets yellow carded, Oli comes back on at loosehead, we can resource the scrum which meant we didn’t have to take bodies off elsewhere (if the game had gone to uncontested scrums) which would have created space … we dug in there and got a losing bonus point because of that.”