Mol an oige...

Barry Coughlan

THE success of both Leinster and Munster in Europe over the last decade and the subsequent roll-over benefit to the national team has been a major talking point in world rugby; Heineken Cup and Magners League titles, Triple Crowns and even the much desired Grand Slam have propelled Irish rugby into the realm of headline making.

The 2011 Rugby World Cup has, however, stripped both provinces of a huge core of tough talking and tough performing seasoned internationals as the RaboDirect Pro12 kick off approaches this weekend.

For the next six weeks at least, the care of Irish provincial rugby will be invested in players less well known but not necessarily of lesser ability, as may be shown in the coming days. They hope.

For Munster, for instance, who kick off the defence of the title with a home fixture against notoriously troublesome Welsh opponents Newport Gwent Dragons at Musgrave Park on Saturday night (7.45 pm), no less than eleven players have been upgraded from either Academy or Development to full-time contracts this season.

Of that group, nine have been named in Tony McGahan’s initial 28-man squad for Saturday, the notable exceptions being Conor Murray (upgraded to Ireland’s World Cup squad) and Declan Cusack (coming back from injury).

Munster have been through this mill before – that of having to play competitive matches without several of their front-line players; Tony McGahan now has to plan without the top group for at least six, if not eight weeks, and will place his faith in many of this eleven strong group.

They’re not household names, these guys; Mike Sherry, Stephen Archer, Ian Nagle, Dave Foley, Peter O’Mahony, Scott Deasy, Danny Barnes, Simon Zebo, Paddy Butler, even Sean Scanlan or Murray and Cusack, but they have been given a fair bit of exposure over the last 12 months.

In the successful (Magners) League campaign of last season, McGahan called upon 53 players and the up to half of them were in the emerging category. They deserve recognition for having played their part in Munster’s successful campaign that yielded 21 victories from 24 matches, including the semi final and the final.

In between the young and older groups is 26 year old Billy Holland, who believes the Munster Academy has been a much greater success than given credit for. Looking down the list, he readily admitted there were players included that would now pose a huge challenge to his ilk going forward.

But rather than talk of back/second row talent which, he insisted, was there in abundance, he singled out one who could yet become one of the greatest Munster war veterans of all – young prop Stephen Archer.

His scrummaging (Archer’s), suggested Holland, had improved dramatically over the last 12 months through the help and guidance of the coaching staff and not without a huge degree of advice from John Hayes.

“For a tight head, the scrum is of huge importance,” said Holland, “and he is such a great player around the pitch.”

Alongside Archer, Mike Sherry is making huge strides, Nagle, Foley, Butler and O’Mahony have moved up another notch, and McGahan is giving plenty of opportunity these days to Deasy, Barnes and Zebo. Much is now up to the players themselves to take advantage.

In Leinster, there hasn’t been such a dramatic change in faces but the World Cup will give further opportunity to Dominic Ryan and Rhys Ruddock to develop; indeed Ruddock is obviously being groomed as a future Leinster captain.

With Eoin Reddan and Isaac Boss in New Zealand, the door has been opened for young John Cooney, the highly rated Ireland under 20 player, to get competitive game time over the coming weeks.

Second rower Mark Flanagan already made his debut for Leinster against Melbourne Rebels alongside his cousin Devin Toner and he will surely see more game time shortly, while Brendan Macken and Andrew Conway could well explode onto the scene given the opportunity while Brian O’Driscoll, Gordon D’Arcy, Rob Kearney and Fergus McFadden are out of the country.

Conway took the recent U20 World Cup in Italy by storm; the only downside is that he is nursing a leg injury that could keep him out for at least a couple of weeks.

Source: http://feeds.examiner.ie/~r/iesportsblog/~3/WRcDfid9rEE/post.aspx

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