MUNSTER face the Cardiff Blues this Friday November 2 night in round eight of the RaboDirect Pro12. Fifth placed Munster take on the Blues off the back of a 29-3 win over Zebre last weekend.
Munster, who sit just outside the Play-Off zone, travel to Cardiff to take on a Blues team facing their worst run of defeats since the 2004/5 season. Munster need a victory if they are to have any chance of re-entering the top four before the Autumn break. Cardiff Blues have suffered five straight defeats in all competitions, their worst run since season 2004/05. Since they returned to the Arms Park at the start of the season the Blues have won just once there: 34-18 over Treviso in the RaboDirect PRO12 on September 22.
Munster will be without their Irish international contingent this weekend. The stars of the British and Irish cup panel are expected to step up to senior action. With the return from injury of John Murphy and Felix Jones, Munster will still have a strong squad available this weekend against a Blues side who were embarassed last weekend at the RDS, 59-22 by Leinster.
One of the young guns on show this weekend will be JJ Hanrahan. The former Rockwell college out-half impressed at 12 for Munster last weekend, scoring two tries and collecting the man of the match award to boot. The UL Bohemians academy product is not getting carried away however, “It’s really exciting to get a couple of tries, to get the ball rolling, but what I’m really happy with was the performance of the team. I’ll be looking at the couple of tackles I missed as well,” he said.
“It was a dream come true to get man of the match, but you need good individual performances in this club, you need to produce the displays if you want to stay in the team. That goes from 1 to 15 because there is serious competition, that’s the drive in this group. Once you get the first try out of the way it builds a bit of confidence but I don’t get deflected by the thought of tries, I just want to be able to concentrate on doing my job as part of the team and contributing in that way. It would be nice to get another opportunity but there is serious competition there”.
Munster have won their last two encounters against Edinburgh in the European Cup and Zebre. However away from home the Munster men have lost their last four games since their visit to Edinburgh on the opening weekend in the PRO12. Munster have won their last four fixtures with Cardiff Blues, but have only been victorious at the Arms Park in this tournament once before: 18-16 on 4 November 2005. Munster are win-less in their last three trips to Wales. Kick off on Friday 2 night is at 7.05pm.
