MUNSTER have reported a clean bill of health ahead of this Friday nights RaboDirect Pro 12 game against Cardiff in Cardiff. With a 13th win in a row secured last weekend against the Scarlets, the Munster side received an added bonus this week with the return to action of Danny Barnes and Ian Nagle.
Barnes missed last weekend’s game with a minor hand injury but he was in action when the squad trained in the Sports Arena at the University of Limerick this Tuesday. Nagle, who picked up a shoulder injury against London Irish, has fully recovered and took a full part in this morning’s session.
Out of luck, Tomas O’Leary will do light training this week with a return to full training next week on the cards and an indication then when he might be available for squad selection.
Speaking to PostSport ahead of this weekends game Munster backrow Niall Ronan was in confident mood after three wins from three in the league, which sees Munster top the table at this early stage.
“We are not playing to 100% so far, but we have to look at a win over Scarlets at home as a great result and hopefully we will try and improve this weekend again against Cardiff. It is never an easy game over there. We won there last year, but we are expecting another tight game. They have massive ball carriers and we will look to make sure we are in the game when the game is in the balance”
Munster defeated the Scarlets easily in the last round. The Munster scrum being to the fore in the victory.
Munster forwards coach Anthony Foley was happy with that aspect, but he was still looking for improvement.
“We are happy with the results, but we are still striving to get better as we go along. Cardiff is not the ideal place to be going looking for things to be improved upon, but we are happy enough with where we are at present. Paul Mc Carthy has done some serious work on our scrum and with players such as Botha, Du Preez, Hayes and Horan at our disposal, as well as Archer, Ryan and Condon in the background, the scrum sessions in preseason have been quiet interesting. Hopefully going forward we can keep that going. Starting this week. We only look at this week and this week only. We are solely focussed on that one gamer”.
Munster Squad: J Murphy, S Deasy, D Howlett, S Zebo, T Gleeson, D Barnes, L Mafi, D Hurley, I Keatley, D Williams, P Stringer, M Horan, S Archer, BJ Botha, W du Preez, J Hayes, D Fogarty, M Sherry, D Foley, I Nagle, M O’Driscoll, B Holland, P O’Mahony, N Ronan, J Coughlan, T O’Donnell.
