Peter O’Mahony and Thaakir Abrahams passed fit for Munster's trip to La Rochelle
FIT THE RETURN: Peter O'Mahony during a Munster Rugby squad training session at the University of Limerick recently. Pic: Tyler Miller/Sportsfile.
Peter O’Mahony and Thaakir Abrahams have been passed fit to face La Rochelle on Saturday with Munster keeping to their word and naming their strongest team possible for the Champions Cup clash with Ronan O’Gara’s side at Stade Marcel-Deflandre.
Attack coach Mike Prendergast had made it clear from the outset that there would be no attempt by Munster to emulate Saracens by sending a weakened team to France for the Round of 16.
The English giants face a trip to Toulon and a potential quarter-final at defending champions Toulouse a week later and director of rugby Mark McCall is saving his England internationals the trip to Stade Felix-Mayol this weekend.
Munster, though, have landed in France and are marching to a different beat, backed by more than 2,000 travelling supporters.
A week after international quartet Jack Crowley, Conor Murray, Calvin Nash, and captain Tadhg Beirne returned from Six Nations duty and Craig Casey, Oli Jager, and Jean Kleyn made comebacks from injury and helped deliver a crucial URC victory at Connacht, Munster have been able to name fit-again duo O’Mahony and Abrahams for the European knockout tie.
Beirne captains a Munster side with O’Mahony, Kleyn, Abrahams and Andrew Smith all coming into the starting line-up while there is a positional switch for Seán O’Brien as he moves to inside centre from the wing to cover the absence of Alex Nankivell, whose appeal against his red card against Connacht last weekend failed.
Summer signing Abrahams starts at full-back as he marks his comeback from a dislocated shoulder in mid-December while Smith, ineligible last week against his former club Connacht, will start on the left wing for his second Munster start after an impressive debut against Glasgow last month.
“Never considered it," Prendergast said earlier this week of the possibility Munster could rest frontline players.
“Because we value this competition so much, you know, in terms of for how long you look back over it, this competition's been associated with Munster.
“I think we're in a position as well, it's quite obvious we've had injuries, We've a lot of those guys back, our internationals are after coming back, there’s a good freshness there.
“I think even over the last couple of weeks we’ve just managed the players as well. The internationals got a break, some of them played less and still had a break so they're after coming back even fresher again.
“But even outside that we didn't have the conversation, it was always going to be ‘we're going to send our best team down here’.
"And even looking at last week, there was a very, very good performance put in and I think even a week before, to be fair, against Glasgow it was another good performance, albeit we came up short in the last 15 minutes.
“We just feel that, I suppose, you look at the last two seasons as well, we've came good towards the end of the season. I think it’s like anything as much as you can do it, winning becomes a habit and you got to get into that.
“I'm not saying we're near that at the moment, absolutely we're not, but I think we're in a fairly decent place but in terms of the selection it was never (a consideration).”
Abrahams replaces the less experienced Ben O’Connor at full-back having previous appeared there for both the Sharks and South Africa Under-20s with Nash completing the back three outside a midfield partnership of O’Brien and Tom Farrell while Crowley continues his half-back partnership with scrum-half Craig Casey after a player of the match performance in Mayo.
Jeremy Loughman, Diarmuid Barron and Oli Jager form an unchanged front row with Kleyn and Beirne starting together in the second row for the first time since October after the former returned from a thigh injury off the bench last Saturday.
O’Mahony and John Hodnett have recovered from knocks to start alongside No.8 Gavin Coombes in the back row while interim head coach Ian Costello has named six forwards on the Munster bench with Murray, set to win his 201st Munster cap alongside 197-cap Rory Scannell, providing experienced backline cover.
Replacement tighthead Stephen Archer is set to make his record-extending 299th Munster appearance from the bench.
Meanwhile Leinster and Connacht have also named their teams for their Champions Cup Round of 18 clashes against Harlequins (3pm) and Cardiff (8pm) respectively on Saturday.
Leo Cullen has named Caelan Doris as captain of his side, with Josh van der Flier and Jack Conan joining him in the back row while Joe McCarthy has been named in the second row alongside RG Snyman.
Connacht have made five changes from the side that started the historic meeting with Munster in Castlebar last week
T Abrahams; C Nash, T Farrell, S O’Brien, A Smith; J Crowley, C Casey; J Loughman, D Barron, O Jager; J Kleyn, T Beirne - captain; P O’Mahony, J Hodnett, G Coombes.
N Scannell, J Wycherley, S Archer, F Wycherley, T Ahern, C Murray, R Scannell, A Kendellen.
H Keenan, J Osborne, G Ringrose, R Henshaw, J Lowe, S Prendergast, J Gibson-Park; A Porter, D Sheehan, R Slimani, J McCarthy, RG Snyman, J Conan, Josh van der Flier, C Doris.
G McCarthy, J Boyle, T Furlong, R Baird, M Deegan, L McGrath, R Ross Byrne, J Barrett.
M Hansen, S Bolton, H Gavin, B Aki, F Treacy, JJ Hanrahan, M Devine; J Duggan, D Heffernan, F Bealham, O Dowling, D Murray, J Murphy, S Hurley-Langton, S Jansen.
D Tierney-Martin, D Buckley, J Aungier, N Murray, P Boyle, C Blade, J Ioane, P O’Conor.
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