Ospreys Vs Munster (Fri 9th, KO 19:05)

Rattlehead_ie

Paul O'Connell will lead a Munster side that includes Denis Leamy and Tomas O'Leary for the top of the table clash with Ospreys at the Liberty Stadium in Swansea this evening.

However missing from the squad announced yesterday are Kieran Lewis, Keith Earls, Niall Ronan and Marcus Horan who are suffering from a stomach bug - as is Tony Buckley while Ronan O'Gara's hamstring injury has not cleared up in time to allow him participate although Munster management are hopeful he will be fit in time for the game against Sale.

I still consider this a pretty strong Munster team even with ROG. Horan, Earls and ROnan out. They must improve really on last weeks performance (not to take anything from Ulster)

Munster: D Hurley; D Howlett, B Murphy, L Mafi, I Dowling; P Warwick, T O'Leary; F Pucciariello, J Flannery, J Hayes; D O'Callaghan, P O'Connell (capt); A Quinlan, D Wallace, D Leamy. Replacements: D Fogarty, T Ryan, M O'Driscoll, J O'Sullivan, P Stringer, C Doyle, T Gleeson.

Ospreys: L Byrne; J Vaughton, S Parker, A Bishop, S Williams; J Hook, M Phillips; P James (capt), R Hibbard, C Griffiths; A-Wyn Jones, J Thomas; T Smith, S Tandy, F Tiatia. Replacements: H Bennett, R Bevington, L Bateman, M Holah, R Webb, D Biggar, K Phillips.

kopykat

on paper,munster should get their arses handed to them on a plate.no henson?he played well as full back last game.bowe should be startin if hes fit,that guy is havin the season of his life

flyswatter

I think this game is on the BBC red button if you don't have Setanta. I'd say Munster will win.

Deedsie

Munster will definitely put in a bigger performance (not hard) than last week. They will be focusing in for the sale match.

Rattlehead_ie

kopykat wrote: »

on paper,munster should get their arses handed to them on a plate.no henson?he played well as full back last game.bowe should be startin if hes fit,that guy is havin the season of his life

Bowe unavailable.
Although I'm not sure as to why he is unavailable. I'm sure he is injured but what injury ?!? Munster to dog it out for a tough win.

juvenal

If anyone has a decent stream can they post a linky please?

Cheers. . .

ScrubsfanChris

It's also on BBC Wales at 7:00

[Jackass]

kopykat wrote: »

on paper,munster should get their arses handed to them on a plate.no henson?he played well as full back last game.bowe should be startin if hes fit,that guy is havin the season of his life

That's more or less the Munster first 15 right now.

Horan should (imo) be behind Pucciariello, other than that first choice pack. Warrick in for the injured O'Gara, Murphy in for the injured Tipoki. The only player missing from the first 15 available (unless injured?) is Earls, who's replaced by Hurley who gets a lot of starting game time anyway.

Ospreys on the other hand have rested Henson, Bowe, Holah, Nutbrown, Ryan, Gough and Jones.

Still a strong Ospreys team. Stronger in the backs (despite half their backline not playing) and in the pack Munster have the advantage. Should be interesting.

kopykat

[Jackass] wrote: »

That's more or less the Munster first 15 right now.

Horan should (imo) be behind Pucciariello, other than that first choice pack. Warrick in for the injured O'Gara, Murphy in for the injured Tipoki. The only player missing from the first 15 available (unless injured?) is Earls, who's replaced by Hurley who gets a lot of starting game time anyway.

Ospreys on the other hand have rested Henson, Bowe, Holah, Nutbrown, Ryan, Gough and Jones.

Still a strong Ospreys team. Stronger in the backs (despite half their backline not playing) and in the pack Munster have the advantage. Should be interesting.

how is that the first choice team when you have so many quality players injured?your statement doest make any sense....

sm.org

kopykat wrote: »

how is that the first choice team when you have so many quality players injured?your statement doest make any sense....

He means from the players currently available.

Podge_irl

kopykat wrote: »

how is that the first choice team when you have so many quality players injured?your statement doest make any sense....

Its rare enough to ever have no injured players - its a squad game these days.

murphym7

Good try. Mafi needs to see a barber urgently.:D

juvenal

Any links to streams? Can't find anything on Justin

murphym7

I've my broadband with eircom so I can watch on setanta. No others, sorry.

RugbyFanatic

juvenal wrote: »

Any links to streams? Can't find anything on Justin

http://www.footysports.tv/content/sports/?page=rugby

[Jackass]

That tackle put in by O'Leary is as good a tackle as you'll see anywhere in rugby. Stringer may be famed for his tap tackle, but the pace to get back and the strength to put him out in the corner. First class.

It amazes me always watching Ospreys games. How many people are in that stadium? 10,000+? I'd heard a better atmosphere at an AIL league game. The crowd are just silent. Each individual (as in one individual person) cheer echos around the ground. Bizzare. Imo Ospreys have the best ground in ML, absolute beauty, but I've never been in it even half full and the atmosphere is dead. Even for away fans it's tough to get into the game with the void of noise in general.

Not a classic game by any stretch of the imagination, but this is Munster back to oldschool tactics. Controlling the game well, Ospreys not allowed do much with the ball, exactly what Munster should do after their poor recent run of form, I think they'll grind out a win here which will put them back on top of the league and get the monkey off their back going into Europe. I hope at this break for Europe it'll be a Munster / Leinster 1 / 2 in the league with the race on, and Leinster still to visit Thomond!! :eek: But you'd have to say Munster with wins in Swansea and Dublin under their belt, top of the league over half way, will have this league in the bag - total side track from the game here, but wouldn't be surprised at a Munster double this year. I hate them :mad: Why do our local and most bitter rivals have to be the best in Europe - why couldn't we have Scarlets or someone?? haha

ScrubsfanChris

15 - 14 to OSP

The Ritz

Warwick off with a slight concussion, Hook puts Ospreys 4 points ahead 15 - 11, with two penalty kicks, the last one an absolute cracker. Munster need to get discipline under control, their only way to get a result out of this is to grind out trys, a big ask.


Ritz

The Ritz

Doyle puts over a penalty ! 15 - 14.......

The Ritz

Dowling off yellow card, Hook penalty 18 - 14. The sh!t just got thicker and deeper....


ritz

Kristopherus

Home town ref. Very quick to punish Munster. Thats whats ruining the Magniers games. How can anyone get out of the way when ref is choosy about when he calls "ruck".

The Ritz

Tandy off for same offence as Dowling, ref fair enough, Doyle puts another penalty over, Stringer warming up.....


ritz

[Jackass]

That's an outrageous yellow card for Tandy. I thought Dowling was unlucky to see yellow as he was on his feet, but ref had called ruck....for Tandy the same thing happend, the only difference was when Dowling did it he was preventing an almost certain try after an 80 meter break, when Tandy did it, Munster were killing time in the Ospreys half trying to get the 10 minutes over and going through the phases going nowhere.

I hate it when refs try to be "consistant" and if they bin one player for the same infringment next time they bin a player from the other team...completely out of context.

The refs in ML really are muck and it takes a lot away from the competition imo.

ScrubsfanChris

Kristopherus wrote: »

Home town ref. Very quick to punish Munster. Thats whats ruining the Magniers games. How can anyone get out of the way when ref is choosy about when he calls "ruck".

The ref is from Scotland

juvenal

Can I get a score/time update please?

The Ritz

O'Leary over for a try !

Ritz

ScrubsfanChris

OSP 18 - 22 MUN

C-mon Munster
Try from O'leary after a great build up.

The Ritz

18 - 22, Doyle missed conversion , 20.34

Ritz

Kristopherus

Peno from Hook 21 -25.

The Ritz

O'Leary puts over a penalty, 18 - 25, advantage given to Ospreys almost immediately afterwards, Hook takes another 3 points 21-25. Stringer on as scrum half, O'Leary stays on as 10.

Ritz

ScrubsfanChris

21 - 25
10 minutes to go.

Kristopherus

Great win

The Ritz

21 - 25, Superb effort by Munster, back in form.

Ritz

Stev_o

Boring match, no flow, useless ref should off been a yellow card alot sooner then 60 minutes.

ScrubsfanChris

It's a Munster win!

21-25

Kristopherus

Roll on Sale !! Note that the buggers have a free w/e this week:rolleyes:

murphym7

Very worried about number 10 for next week. Hope Warwick or O'Gara are back. Fair play to O'Leary, he did a great job today, not a viable 10 though.

ScrubsfanChris

Stev_o wrote: »

Boring match, no flow, useless ref should off been a yellow card alot sooner then 60 minutes.

At least he was consistant, and I did not think he was bad.

wowy

Kristopherus wrote: »

Roll on Sale !! Note that the buggers have a free w/e this week:rolleyes:

Sale are playing London Irish at the moment.

phog

I was delighted with the result and happy enough with the performance, we're back on top and two very disappointing results. Massive game from the forwards and fair play to Conan Doyle for stepping up at such short notice and to TOL for his switch to OH for the last 15 minutes.

Hopefully ROG and Warwick will be available for next week

toomevara

wowy wrote: »

Sale are playing London Irish at the moment.

They've beaten Irish, good win for them. Pleased with the Reds tonight. Coherent performance, focused. Nice to see.

conf101

O' Leary had an awesome game! Also fair play to Conan Doyle, can't have been easy for him to kick those 2 kicks, even though they were in front of the posts!

fifth

Not a bad performance, good game. Looking forward to Leinster now tomorrow night.

Serenity Now!

toomevara wrote: »

They've beaten Irish, good win for them. Pleased with the Reds tonight. Coherent performance, focused. Nice to see.

Great result and great gusto to get that result. One criticism I'd have is that discipline was fairly poor. Need to have that side of the game sheeny shiny by next week.

phog

I would have thought that at the beginning of the season that the Connacht and Ulster matches were the ones that Munster would have targetted to win and possible use the Ospreys match to get ready for next week however with the earlier results over the Christmas period going wrong for us it meant we needed to try for a win last night, then with the injuries and the bug hitting the camp it was a case of trying options for next week and if our luck couldn't get any worse we lose Warwick during the game. :mad:

Overall the game itself was stop start sort of game but the result great for Munster, we're on top of the table again as we head in to the break for the HC and the first round of the 6Ns games. Nice place to be.

Cool_CM

murphym7 wrote: »

Very worried about number 10 for next week. Hope Warwick or O'Gara are back. Fair play to O'Leary, he did a great job today, not a viable 10 though.

It was on the RTE news at 6 that Warwick had been given the all clear, can't find any links to verify this though

phog

Cool_CM wrote: »

It was on the RTE news at 6 that Warwick had been given the all clear, can't find any links to verify this though

If it's true then thats good news, Doyle was decent enough last night but is H/Cup qualified and it would probably be too much of a step up for him anyway, hopefully now ROG will be fit as well wouldn't like to lose him not the last two pool matches.

Cool_CM

Here we go, it's at about 6.20
http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0110/6news_av.html?2472867,null,230
Good news

Nukem

Watching the post match analysis Munster looked far more cohesive - great display of control again in the tight and some intelligent running from the backs. Hurley had a fair game and seems to be getting is confidence back so hopefully another back for FB.Discipline was shocking, didn't catch the peno count but it must have been horrible.

Happy with win and performance.

phog

Nukem wrote: »

Watching the post match analysis Munster looked far more cohesive - great display of control again in the tight and some intelligent running from the backs. Hurley had a fair game and seems to be getting is confidence back so hopefully another back for FB.Discipline was shocking, didn't catch the peno count but it must have been horrible.

Happy with win and performance.

I don't know what the penalty cvount was either but surprisingly Wallace was responsible for three kickable penalties and for his own game he was MOTM in my eyes.

The big benefit in the penalty count is it usually leads to the next game being a very deciplined game and that might count in our favour against Sale.

buck65

Saw Warwick in Limerick saturday afternoon and looked ok. I really enjoyed the game TBH Wallace , O Leary. POC DOC were all immense as was Mafi and Hurley did well too.