Shane Daly prays for Munster poise in Durban cathedral of rugby

Munster's Shane Daly celebrates with Dan Kelly and Mike Haley after scoring his sides first try of the match. Pic: ©INPHO/Dan Clohessy.

Shane Daly has come up against the potential pitfalls that a trip to Kings Park presents a visiting player, from a swimming pool behind one sets of posts to a star-studded, powerhouse home side standing between Munster and the tryline.

He also knows his team needs to stay focused if they are to leave Durban with valuable United Rugby Championship points after Saturday’s meeting with the Sharks.

With six matches of the regular season remaining, and the race to the top eight in the standings still wide open, Munster embark on a two-match South African tour in need of those of points if they are to earn the home play-off quarter-final they desire with a top-four finish.

The official, statistical URC analysis of the run-in to decide the knockout seedings brackets sixth-placed Munster as a team in a strong position for a play-off berth heading into the final third of the league campaign.

They were just six points off the leaders, Glasgow Warriors, and nine clear of ninth-placed Connacht at the start of this 13th round of matches but a trip to South Africa to play the Sharks and then the Bulls seven days later is a difficult challenge to kickstart that push for a say in the title shake-up, particularly with the season on the line for this weekend’s hosts.

For all the Springbok quality within the Sharks squad, it has been another campaign of underperformance. They lie in 11th on 24 points and the URC rates them as outside chances to reach the knockout stages, needing five wins from their final half-dozen fixtures.

That makes them as desperate as his own team, in the words of Munster head coach Clayton McMillan, while Daly, who starts on the left wing, understands the importance a win at Kings Park could carry for the rest of the campaign.

He sat out Munster’s last visit to Durban last May due to the season-ending hamstring injury sustained on Ireland A duty two months earlier and missed the quarter-final defeat in a goal-kick shootout after extra time that was marred by some gamesmanship from the home side.

Yet he did recall his most recent visits in 2023, when the Corkman experienced a range of emotions, from a 50-35 Champions Cup Round of 16 exit to a season-changing 22-22 URC league draw a fortnight later that ignited Munster’s run to the title.

“Those big results, (are) something we've probably struggled with a little bit this year, we've come out the wrong side of a lot of big games,” Daly said.

“If you're looking at the likes of Leinster at Christmas and Toulon and Castres, we've come out the wrong side of those games with pretty good performances in those games.

“So once you start coming out the right side of those big games, it gives the squad a lot of motivation and confidence going into the bigger games towards the end of the season, definitely.” 

Kings Park, he added, comes with its own unique challenges that have to be met by visiting teams. Former boss Graham Rowntree described the stadium with its towering grandstands as a cathedral of rugby ahead of that Champions Cup defeat and Daly on Thursday said: “I think a lot of the stadiums over here are pretty incredible. They're very interesting places to play, there's a lot of history behind them.

“So yeah, look, it's a class place to play. It's somewhere a bit different. It's got a swimming pool behind the goalpost, a few distractions if you get brought into it. So it's easy to get distracted there.

“So you kind of have to stay nailed on when you're playing there, not get overwhelmed by the size of the stadium or some of the things going on around the place with cheerleaders and things like that. It's a different kind of set-up to what we're used to back home, but it's cool all the same.

“We're as prepared as we can possibly be. We've had a lot of time to preview (the Sharks), because of the nature of the last couple of weeks (with the Six Nations break).

“We have as many bodies fit as we can. Obviously, we're missing a couple of internationals, but that's just the nature of this time of the season. We're buzzing for the weekend and hopefully we can deliver a performance that we spoke about.” 

SHARKS: L Giliomee; Y Penxe, E Hooker, A Esterhuizen – captain, M Mapimpi; J Hendrikse, G Williams; P Ganyane, F Mbatha, H Jacobs; J Jenkins, E van Heerden; S Kolisi, V Tshituka, P Buthelezi Replacements: E Swart, O Nche, V Koch, C Rahl, N Hatton, B Davids, J Smith, H Kunene 

MUNSTER: Mike Haley; Calvin Nash, Tom Farrell, Alex Nankivell, Shane Daly; JJ Hanrahan - captain, Ethan Coughlan; Michael Milne, Diarmuid Barron, Michael Ala’alatoa; Jean Kleyn, Tom Ahern; Seán Edogbo, John Hodnett, Gavin Coombes.

Replacements: Lee Barron, Josh Wycherley, John Ryan, Edwin Edogbo, Fineen Wycherley, Paddy Patterson, Dan Kelly, Brian Gleeson.

Referee: Sam Grove-White (Scotland)