RUGBY:STRANGE TIMES in Limerick. The first Heineken Cup weekend of the season and, inevitably, tickets are a topic for discussion. But it is not about their scarcity, rather that Munster are actively trying to sell them to get a crowd into Thomond Park.
The economy may be to blame but so too might a losing start in Paris, the third defeat in a row for a Munster side badly needing to inject some momentum into their season. New coach Rob Penney didn’t mince his words either when assessing the fallout from the 22-17 loss to Racing Metro in Stade de France and he knows a response is expected when they take on Edinburgh at Thomond Park on Sunday.
“The boys feel as if they’ve let the team down, they’ve let the community down, they’ve let the jersey down. They just feel really dark about the situation they’re in. It’s not through lack of effort. Sometimes it just doesn’t happen for you.
“We’ve got to obviously get some performances on the track that give us some results. That’s what we’re all searching for. That’s what everybody wants,” he said.
He will have to plan without Ronan O’Gara for the next three or four weeks, while Keith Earls, who was back running at training in University of Limerick yesterday, is another couple of weeks away from action. Jamie Coughlan and Wian du Preeze are also confirmed absentees but Penney will wait until nearer the weekend before making a call on Donncha O’Callaghan.
Penney was pleased Paul O’Connell has shown no ill-effects from his first match since May, but warned that the former Lions captain, who will be 33 on Saturday, will need to be carefully managed.
“I think there will still be a rollercoaster about his availability and unavailability due to the fact that his body is still getting to a state where, hopefully, we can get some longevity and consistency,” said Penney, who revealed that O’Connell’s availability was in doubt right up to a few hours before the match.
“He came to us in the middle of last week and felt he was making the progress needed to be considered for the group and right up until the morning of the game there was the potential for Paulie to decide that something had occurred and he wasn’t quite right but he got through that phase and was really motivated to play which was exciting for everyone and he got through 63 minutes.
“He was robust, should have scored a try, that would have been exciting. He did a lot of good things in the game, got knocked around a bit which is good conditioning for him, hitting into the programme he has got, without any repercussions.
“He’s back in doing his gym work. We are minimising the amount of time he spends on the grass to maximise the amount of time he can rehab and get himself right physically so that he can have longevity rather than spending a disproportionate amount of time on the grass and not being able to get into the gym and do all the things he needs to do to get his body in the best shape.”
Penney said that as coach there is little he would change if he was playing the Racing Metro game again, but he felt Munster’s kicking let them down and that was one area they concentrated on in training yesterday.
“It was my gut feeling that our kicking strategy, not so much our kicking strategy as our execution of that strategy really let us down. They undoubtedly won that battle and you might have noticed the boys doing extra practice today,” said Penney.
The Munster coach also revealed they had made complaints to the referee’s association following the defeats to Leinster and Racing Metro as they were unhappy with decisions, particularly the way promising loosehead Dave Kilcoyne was pinged.
“It’s just the new-kid-on-the-block scenario. People are assuming unfairly that he’ll be the reason things aren’t functioning well.
“The referees have come back with a positive response which is a great start. All we can do is create that awareness and ensure that we keep presenting the picture we’re seeing and asking if there’s a different opinion.”
Penney said there was no danger of underestimating Edinburgh following their 45-0 drubbing in Murrayfield to Saracens.
“They’ll feel they will be coming in under radar, they won’t, we are certainly doing as much diligently as we would for any one of the other games. We are doing as much as we can to defend it and there is two sides hurting so there could be fireworks,” he added.
