MUNSTER head coach Anthony Foley chatted to the assembled media this week ahead of Sunday’s clash with the Newport Gwent Dragons at Rodney Parade. The man in charge chatted about the week ahead, the loss to Connacht and the re-signing of CJ Stander.
It was great news about CJ Stander re-signing?
“It is great. It’s a sign of the man, he has come over here lock, stock and barrel and put everything in for us. He has progressed very well over the past couple of seasons and he has really put a mark in Irish rugby at the moment.
“For him to commit to Munster rugby for two more seasons after this good for everyone concerned.
“It’s a good boost for everyone involved in Munster that one of our best players is staying. I think it is something that lays down a marker for everyone else.
Do that help with contract negotiations with players such as Earls, Zebo and Murray, the other big names out of contract?
“That is all being done in the background. I don’t have any news on that at the moment. It’s progressing.”
Injury News –
Francis Saili has a calf problem.
“Yes, he is getting a scan on his calf after the weekend. If a fella is getting a scan today, I don’t imagine I’m going to get good news tomorrow so I’m not holding out much hope but I’ll wait and see. I haven’t picked a team yet so we’ll see. Donnacha Ryan has a bang on the ribs. BJ Botha took a bang to the head. We have a couple of fellas who are ill, Andrew Conway, Jack O’Donoghue was ill and didn’t train today. We have a few like that. Other than that everyone else trained.”
Is anyone ruled out for Sunday?
“A few of them are ruled out, yes, at the moment. There is a player welfare matter put in as well, managing some of these guys games, so we need to do that too.”
Is Keatley playing so much rugby a worry for you with Tyler being sidelined?
“He is a fit out-half. Unfortunately Tyler’s quad came at him during the warm-up in Scarlets. He was down to play that game. Johnny Holland has been injured, Billl Johnston was injured at the time. Rory Scannell played very well in the A game he was involved in. It is obviously great to have Tyler back training there today and it is a matter of holding expectation on it. He has been out for over a month now, so it is about if he can get back to where he was. It remains to be seen.”
Is Conor Murray (foot) a doubt for Leicester?
He ran yesterday and he’s fine today and hell run harder tomorrow so we need to see how the compression goes.
Conor is a tough bit of stuff so he understands that he’s got a goal in his own head for what he wants to be back for and normally when a player has that they are not too far away from it. He only ran yesterday and had to rest up today. With those injuries it’s not so much how you feel when you run, it’s after a night’s sleep. Is there any swelling or is there any reaction after it? He seems fine today.
How important is this weekend? You don’t want to go into Europe on the back of two defeats?
No, but we wouldn’t even think like that. We know we’re going to Dragons and we know it’s going to be difficult. It’s going to be attritional, it’s going to take a lot of us to go there and win but I think is important after last Saturday that we go about doing that and people see that and hopefully the players that are out there will give and account of themselves that’s worthy of the jersey.
Munster have a decent record over there, however there are no easy matches in Rodney Parade.
Nobody has it easy there and I think you go through their team and they have a decent front row, Landman is a key player for them in the second row and Faletau at eight. Pretorious at scrum half. You have Tovey and fellas like that. Last year I went through their Academy and the Welsh Academy and eight of them were in the Dragons.
I remember last year I came across an U-21 Welsh team and eight of them were in the Dragons. They have a lot of quality in the side, they were in the semi-final of the Challenge Cup last year.I know they are down at the bottom of the table but they were only a couple of scores away from winning those games. We understand that, we obviously watch a lot of their games and we understand there are massive threats in their game and we need to be vary of that but we need to go about our job better than we went about it last Saturday.
With the loss last weekend against Connacht – Has it been a tough week?
It’s been a tough few days, obviously the circumstances, we should have played two games in Europe and then into the Connacht game. We had a weekend off, nobody can really say whether that had an effect. We started the game very poorly against Connacht and we didn’t get any possession for first-half, I think it was 70-30 at half-time, we were lucky to be just five points down. We came out in the second-half and reversed the trend and I think we ended up being 66% in the second-half but what probably cost us getting up over the 70% were turnovers in their 22 and like I said after the game, we turn over a lineout five metres from their line the way we did, poor execution of the play and we have a two-on-one going down the far touchline with two props, we go into contact and they come away with the ball and then from there we end up in our own 22 and they were down to 14 men at the time and it was only a one-point game. It’s stuff like that, they say, are coach-killers. You kinda go those moments are massive, they are massive in the game and even in the last play of the game and we are on their 22 and we turn over the ball at the base. There were plenty of moments in the game we had opportunities to build pressure and keep our foot on the throat and we let it off far too easily and that’s the frustrating thing in the second-half when you look through the way we played, it was good but it all gets brushed under the carpet because of the result and because oif turnovers and stuff like that.
It is uncharacteristic of us to get into that area of the pitch and turnover the ball.
