Earls faces tough decisions over his rugby future

WITH a groin injury ruling him out of Munster’s URC quarter-final tie with Glasgow Warriors on Saturday night, Keith Earls faces some tough decisions over his long-term participation in representative rugby.

Earls, who turns 36 on October 2, will be out of contract at the end of the World Cup  and while the Moyross man remains part of the Munster Rugby panel, defence coach Denis Leamy said the management team would meet with him to determine his future plans.

“No, it’s not great,”  Leamy said in reference to Earls’ latest injury. “He’s got a Grade 3… which would probably mean that he’d be out for a number of weeks.

“It’s hugely frustrating because he’s come back and he was brilliant on tour in South Africa, two really strong showings off the bench as well and then unfortunately he’s done that injury (versus Sharks),” Leamy said.

Munster name their team for the trip to Glasgow at lunchtime tomorrow (Friday). The game kicks off at 7.35pm and will be televised on RTÉ.

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Ahead of the quarter-final, Munster Rugby has revealed some interesting statistics about their involvement in the competition.

• Munster have the best defence in the URC with the least points conceded (357, less than 20 points per game) and the least tries conceded (47, 2.6 per game).

• Joey Carbery is the province’s top scorer with 124 points and Gavin Coombes has scored the most tries with 14 in 19 appearances.

• Jack O’Donoghue tops the appearances chart having played in all bar one of Munster’s 23 fixtures.

• Shane Daly and Jean Kleyn have each played 21 matches with Daly playing the most minutes for Munster this season (1,560). Remarkably, Daly has played the last 20 games in-a-row, making 19 starts, with Kleyn starting the last 16 consecutive fixtures. 

• Peter O’Mahony (two), Tadhg Beirne (two), Gavin Coombes (two), John Hodnett (two), Calvin Nash, Joey Carbery, Paddy Patterson, Jean Kleyn and Jack Crowley have been Munster’s Player of the Match winners so far this season.

• John Hodnett has been added to the United Rugby Championship Awards roll of honour by collecting the Tackle Machine prize.

The back-row made 151 tackles with a 96% accuracy over his 11 URC appearances so far this season. This award is given to the player who boasts the best tackle success rate among those who have attempted 150 or more over the course of the campaign.