MUNSTER’S director of rugby Rassie Erasmus should be able to call upon last season’s player of the year, CJ Stander, ahead of this Friday night’s clash with Cardiff at Musgrave Park.
Stander, who toured his native South Africa with Ireland this summer, is expected to make his first appearance of the season in Munster’s second game of their Pro12 campaign.
Simon Zebo (ribs) and Kevin O’Byrne (elbow) have emerged as the only injury concerns after the 13-23 win over Scarlets last weekend.
While the Garryowen duo of Alex Wotton (hyperextension of knee) and David Johnston (ankle) took full part in training this week, the latter is expected to be involved in some way on Friday night.
Ahead of the game this weekend, Erasmus is expecting a tough physical encounter against one of the dark horses of the league this season.
“From what I’ve seen they are physical in the way they scored and the amount of points they scored last weekend in their win. There is a lot of skill involved in the team. We’re playing at home, which is nice and we must utilise it. It’s going to be a different challenge from last week.
“Tactically, we knew against Scarlets they’ll be coming from five metres inside their own 22, they’ll have a go, where it looks like, for me at this stage, that Cardiff have a more tactical approach. Sometimes they like to play the more percentage game. When they do attack, certainly they have the skill to attack. So it will be a little bit different of a challenge”
Munster, who this week moved into their new training centre at UL, have already begun to see the benefits of the ‘one centre’ training facilities this season. According to scrum half Duncan Williams, it has played a huge part in Munster’s good start to the season.
“We are all in one centre now, so that helps. We all come in on Monday and do a review where as previously we might have had to do that over Skype or iChat, or go to Mitchelstown in the afternoon.
“Now we are all just in the one room, you get that face to face contact and you get that time to thrash things out and it has been good.”
One familiar face who will be awaiting Munster this weekend is former number 8, Nick Williams.
“People who coached or played against him know the massive impact he can make. He is a big challenge for the whole team while defending,” added Erasmus.
