URC: Scarlets v Munster, Parc y Scarlets, Saturday, 5.30pm – live on Premier Sports 1
Munster head coach Clayton McMillan didn’t need to hear any ghost stories. As befits someone with a keen attention to detail, the New Zealander was well aware of his team’s shortcomings in recent seasons, principally in suffering slow starts from a results perspective.
He addressed the issue among other topics when naming his first team in a competitive fixture for Saturday evening’s game away to the Scarlets.
“It’s been a focal point of our preseason,” said McMillan. “We worked hard to make sure we’re physically, technically, tactically ready to enter the season in the best possible position. That’s only achieved if you get all your best bodies playing.
“The best form of selection is availability, so a lot of what we’ve done has been around trying to get us rugby-ready, changing things up and being a little smarter around how we operate to get ourselves the best chance to have most of our bodies available to us. [That] would help with the consistency of performance that potentially hasn’t been there in the front end of the season in the past few years.”
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The shorthand version in selection terms is that summer signing Dan Kelly plays at outside centre in the absence of the injured Tom Farrell, a position the 24-year-old summer signing from Leicester Tigers filled in 2020 for the Ireland under-20s.
Injuries dictated that Craig Casey and Alex Kendellen were required to jump into the starting team despite coming back to preseason a little later than the main tranche of players who had the summer off. Casey captained Ireland – as he does for his province in the absence of Tadhg Beirne – in the Tests against Georgia and Portugal while Kendellen made his debut in the latter game in Lisbon.
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McMillan explained: “Given that the internationals came in a little bit later, we’ve largely rewarded performance through the preseason to those who have been here for the balance of preseason, knowing that having that international experience and X-factor coming off the bench is really a luxurious position to be in. We hope they will come on and be in a position to finish the job for us.
“There are a few caveats around that; John Hodnett, who is injured, means we’ve gone with a specialist seven in Alex Kendellen, and obviously Craig Casey is the captain. In those two instances, that theory hasn’t quite played out, but it was certainly our intention to do that.”
JJ Hanrahan, back in Munster colours again, gets to wear the 10 jersey while the performance of Irish underage international Brian Gleeson at number eight will be an interesting sidebar. There’s plenty of quality on the bench including summer tourists with Ireland, Tom Ahern, Gavin Coombes and Jack Crowley.
Prop Conor Bartley offers a reminder that being an accomplished performer in the All-Ireland League can be a stepping stone to a career in professional rugby. The Scarlets won four of their final five league matches before losing to Leinster in a quarter-final last season, an impressive upturn in fortunes.
Munster are seven-point favourites with the bookmakers and that seems about right, especially with their superior bench resources.
SCARLETS: B Murray; T Rogers, J Roberts, J Hawkins, E Mee; S Costelow, G Davies; K Mathias, Harry Thomas, Henry Thomas; S Lousi, J Ball; T Davies, Josh Macleod (capt), Taine Plumtree.
Replacements: K Myhill, A Hepburn, H O’Connor, M Douglas, J Taylor, D Blacker, J Williams, M Page.
MUNSTER: M Haley; S Daly, D Kelly, A Nankivell, T Abrahams; JJ Hanrahan, C Casey (capt); J Loughman, N Scannell, O Jager; J Kleyn, F Wycherley; J O’Donoghue, A Kendellen, B Gleeson.
Replacements: L Barron, J Wycherley, C Bartley, T Ahern, G Coombes, P Patterson, J Crowley, S O’Brien.
Referee: S Grove-White (Scotland)
