Although he looked in considerable pain when forced off within five minutes of Munster’s hard-earned and bruising 14-5 quarter-final win away to Glasgow last Friday with an arm injury, Peter O’Mahony has not been ruled out of next Saturday’s URC semi-final against Leinster at the Aviva Stadium (5.30pm).
No outcome to the scan was revealed after the Munster’s squad training session in Thomond Park, and forwards coach Andi Kyriacou said they will give their captain as much time as possible to lead out his side against Leinster.
“We’re just going to listen to what our medics say around that. We’ll keep assessing him hour to hour, day to day, and give him as much time as we can to hopefully get him through and get him playing
“But we have to take a lead off what the medics and ultimately what his body tells us as we roll into the weekend.”
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O’Mahony took a limited part in training.
“He just did some stuff in terms of getting himself mobile, moving again and very much still connecting with what’s going on on-field.”
It seems safe to presume that Munster’s hugely influential and talismanic captain would do everything possible to play through the pain barrier, and run through the dressing-room wall if needs be, but Kyriacou said: “If he is available, great. If he’s not, we’ve got some unbelievably good, talented players who’ve played a lot of rugby for us this year in that position, and we’ve got full confidence in what they’ll do come Saturday if Pete doesn’t come through, medically.”
John Hodnett who replaced O’Mahony for the last 76 minutes, is an option to start, and Alex Kendellen, another replacement against Glasgow, is another starting option.
Jack O’Donoghue could also come back into the mix, while Graham Rowntree has also has the option of starting Fineen Wycherley or shifting Tadgh Beirne to the secondrow in light of RG Snyman being ruled out this week, along with Conor Murray, Malakai Fekitoa and Calvin Nash, due to the head injuries they suffered in Glasgow.
Beirne completed the full 80 minutes at blindside in his comeback outing last Friday after recovering from the leg injury he suffered in Ireland’s Six Nations round two win over France last February.
Diarmuid Barron was also forced off in Scotstoun with a shoulder injury but akin to O’Mahony, the hooker had a restricted part in training and has not been ruled out either.
“Again we’ll keep assessing him as we roll through the week into the weekend. But yeah, he’s been a part of training today.
It was more than a little disconcerting to see a quartet of players depart for HIAs and not return.
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“Some of the collisions as they were reffed in the game were deemed illegal and they were given the appropriate cards, or the repercussions were there from the referee’s side of things,” added Kyriacou.
“So, they’ve handled that and those sort of things happen within games, week to week. And the other two were just freak injuries really, that could happen. It’s just unfortunate that we knocked them all up in the one game at this point in the season.
“But we’re happy with where we are as a squad. We’ve got a lot of depth, a lot of lads exposed to rugby throughout the season, both at a URC and European level and we’ve had to cope with this kind of stuff before and we’re confident in the lads who are available to be selected from.”
Leinster remain the ultimate barometer, but although Munster have pushed them close twice this season – losing 27-13 in an entertaining game at the Aviva last October and 20-19 at Thomond Park on St Stephen’s Day – but Kyriacou maintained: “We’ve tried not to pin ourselves to other people.
“We have been on a bit of an evolution throughout the season, exposing new lads to the way we’re playing, new ideas coming in. That took some time and it’s been well documented throughout the season, it took a bit of time to bed in and for lads to get used to the way we’re trying to play.
“But we’re confident with where we are. We’ve been away from home for the last four games and we feel, certainly from the South African URC trip and the Glasgow game, that we’re in a good spot. They’re tough places to go as is Dublin and we’ve given a good account of ourselves the past three weeks and we’ll look to carry that momentum into this game.”
