First glimpse of Abrahams as Munster crank up the prep
Thaakir Abrahams at Munster training in UL, Limerick. Pic ©INPHO/Ben Brady
With 15 days to go before their United Rugby Championship campaign kicks off at home to Connacht, Munster on Friday night embark on a final pre-season run out in Cork looking for further clues as to their direction of travel in the months ahead.
Gloucester provide the opposition at Virgin Media Park (7pm) and while Graham Rowntree’s coaching staff were satisfied with the performance in a 24-21 defeat at Bath last Saturday, every extra week of training in a deliberately truncated pre-season period is an opportunity to make giant strides. Attack coach Mike Prendergast is hoping for more signs of improvement and readiness for the start of the third year under their coaching ticket.
“It’s been a short-enough pre-season, by design,” Prendergast, who played a season at Gloucester in 2007-08, said this week. “The way we train, with a lot of intensity, it was something we spoke about. We looked at how long the seasons are and this is the balance we feel is the right way of doing it.
“It’s been good, everyone’s optimistic in pre-season and then a bit of reality set in last Saturday because we had focused on the non-contact stuff in pre-season and the contact kicked in against Bath and exposed different elements of our game that need working on, and different types of conditioning in terms of contact.
“I thought it was a good workout in terms of what we were looking to take from it. The pre-season and these games are there for everything you’ve worked on, on top of the work you’ve done previously. This is our third year going in and being together so you’ve that bit of cohesiveness along with a couple of new players, especially backs, coming in an integrating, which is good and exciting.
“They’ve brought a lot to us as well and there’s a lot of competition in our backline, which is good to see, and there’s another game on Friday to tell us more.”
Munster supporters, at the ground and watching via livestream for Munster Access subscribers, will have the chance to cast their eyes for the first time on South African wing Thaakir Abrahams, whose summer move from Lyon was the most eye-catching of a quintet of backline signings ahead of 2024-25.
Billy Burns starts at fly-half for the second week running and faces the club which gave him his debut as a 17-year-old back in 2011 and for whom he made 101 appearances before joining Ulster seven years later. Also set for their second appearances since moves from Connacht and Garryowen respectively are replacement centres Tom Farrell and Bryan Fitzgerald.
Yet all eyes will be eager for a first look at Abrahams, who starts on the left wing in a back three with Liam Coombes and full-back Mike Haley, with Shane Daly at outside centre in a midfield partnership with Seán O’Brien, while Burns partners academy scrum-half Jack Oliver in his first start.
Expectation from the coaches’ box is tempered given Abrahams, 25, was a late arrival into camp and Prendergast added: “Tackie only came in last week and he’s coming from a different system and he’s looking at a new way of playing from an attack point of view, so he might take a small bit of time to get up to speed but I’ve no doubt he’ll get there quite quickly.”
Aside from Oliver at number nine, there is further academy representation among the forwards with flanker Ruadhán Quinn starting at blindside flanker in a side to be captain by No.8 Jack O’Donoghue, while fellow back-rower and Under-20 international Seán Edogbo is in line for his first Munster appearance as a replacement. Former Ireland U20 tighthead prop Ronan Foxe also takes a place on the bench.
In a further nod to the provincial pathway the replacements also include club players Conor Ryan (UCC), Luca Cleary (UL Bohs) and Gordon Wood (Garryowen). Ryan and Cleary both featured against Bath last weekend while Wood, who captained a Munster Development XV from number 12 against Ulster last December, is in line for his first Munster appearance and is set to follow father Keith Wood into the senior ranks.
Mike Haley; Liam Coombes, Shane Daly, Seán O'Brien, Thaakir Abrahams; Billy Burns, Jack Oliver; Josh Wycherley, Niall Scannell, Stephen Archer; Gavin Coombes, Fineen Wycherley; Ruadhán Quinn, Alex Kendellen, Jack O'Donoghue - captain.
Diarmuid Barron, Scott Buckley, Eoghan Clarke, Jeremy Loughman, John Ryan, Ronan Foxe, Conor Ryan, Jack Daly, Seán Edogbo, Luca Cleary, Tony Butler, Tom Farrell, Bryan Fitzgerald, Gordon Wood, Patrick Campbell.
J Ford-Robinson, C Knight, A Petch, A Fasogbon, J Singleton, G Blackmore, G Knowles, F Thomas, F Clarke, R Ackermann, C James, D Gwynne, H Taylor, L Ludlow, Z Mercer, J Clement, C Englefield, T Williams, C Chapman, G Anscombe, C Atkinson, R Taylor, M Llewellyn, L Hillman-Cooper, J Reeves, C Wade, O Thorley, M Ward, G Barton, M Adderly-Jones
Andrew Cole (IRFU)
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