Big guns return with need to steer Munster ship back on course
Jack Crowley with Conor Murray and Max Clein. Pic: Ben Brady
Tadhg Beirne’s leadership mettle will have been tested to the full ahead of his first appearance as Munster’s club captain against Ospreys in Cork on Saturday evening but the Ireland star has backed his squad’s senior players to help him drive a return to the high standards they expect of themselves.
A week on from perhaps the worst performance of the Graham Rowntree era as head coach, Munster welcome back both their newly-appointed skipper and his predecessor Peter O’Mahony to add 157 international caps of experience to the forward pack while Jack Crowley also returns from his player-welfare delayed pre-season with what Beirne feels is a more mature outlook to his fly-half play.
“He’s definitely more mature, move vocal for sure,” the captain said of the Ireland playmaker.
“He’s not as… erratic would be the word. He’s calm now and you can see how much better he is when he is calm. At times when he came in, he had that sense of ‘I need to prove myself here’, but he has got that out of his game and that’s why he’s become such a good number 10.”
All of that rugby intelligence possessed by Crowley, Beirne and O’Mahony will be sorely needed at Virgin Media Park as Munster bid to rebound from the horrors of their 42-33 defeat at Zebre Parma last Saturday, an Italian job which went badly wrong as the long-time whipping boys exploited sloppy handling, porous defending and bad decision-making to run in six tries and record their first ever victory over the Irish province.
The Ireland Test trio form a part of Rowntree’s response to the humiliation at Stadio Sergio Lanfranchi, the head coach making eight changes and one positional switch to the starting line-up for this URC round-three outing against an Ospreys side buoyant after coming from 13-3 down to dispatch the Stormers 37-24 in Bridgend last weekend.
Beirne comes into the second row alongside Jean Kleyn as Fineen Wycherley drops to the bench while O’Mahony is named at openside flanker, replacing Ruadhan Quinn, who failed a Head Injury Assessment at Zebre.
Munster’s selection options have been further compromised by injury and the unavailability of players on tour with Emerging Ireland.
The defeat to Zebre cost Rowntree the services of backs Thaakir Abrahams (leg) and Shane Daly (elbow), as well as back-rower Quinn while Tom Aherne, Billy Burns, Alex Nankivell, Diarmuid Kilgallen, Dave Kilcoyne, Roman Salanoa and Edwin Edogbo are among those still sidelined by injury.
Beirne has, understandably, demanded a response from those selected to face the Ospreys.
"We talk about standards in here and that's one thing that you're trying to do all the time, is drive standards.
"And the onus is on us, particularly any of the older lads in general, the more capped lads, the onus is on us to drive those standards.
“And when you have a game like you did on the weekend where we looked a bit flat defensively and things weren't going our way, even attack-wise we were leaving a lot of opportunities out and going a bit off-script, they're the things you have to address in those meetings.
"They don't just come from me, they come from many people in the meeting and the discussion is had. We take it on board and it's about learning from that now and making sure it doesn't happen again this weekend.”
Ospreys will arrive at Virgin Media Park braced for a backlash but also in possession of some serious threats themselves, as Munster defence coach Denis Leamy outlined earlier this week.
“We had them in the quarter-final last year and at the time I think I said they were the most underrated team in the competition and definitely they’ve got a quality and spirit about them that’s very evident.
“Teams like that are a handful, they’ve got quality. That back-row of Morgan Morris, Justin Tipuric and Jac Morgan, I said it to the lads this morning, they’re one of the best back-rows out there.
“They’re an interesting trio to watch in terms of how they work around together, they’re excellent in how they’re a foil for each other; they complement each other really well.
“They’re great going forward… their running lines, their 10…”
Having conceded 11 tries in the first two rounds, the warning from Leamy is pertinent but he added: “The main thing is that it’s very much about what we bring, that’s the key message. We’ve got to look at ourselves, what we do well and while there’s a very good team against us we’ve got to get ourselves right.”
M Haley; C Nash, T Farrell, B Fitzgerald, S McCarthy; J Crowley, C Casey; J Loughman, N Scannell, O Jager; J Kleyn, T Beirne - captain; P O’Mahony, J Hodnett, J O’Donoghue.
D Barron, J Ryan, S Archer, F Wycherley, G Coombes, C Murray, T Butler, J Daly.
M Nagy; I Hopkins, O Watkin, P Cokanasiga, R Conbeer; D Edwards, R Morgan-Williams; S Thomas, D Lake, T Botha; H Sutton, A Beard; J Ratti, J Morgan – captain, M Morris Replacements: S Parry, G Phillips, B Warren, L Jones, H Deaves, L Davies, J Walsh, K Williams.
Mike Adamson (Scotland)
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
