Saracens are going to be no push over but I would fancy Munster to win by around 10-15 points on the basis of boh sides performances over the weekend.sarries rely heavily on glenn Jackson to create and he is a quality player outside of that I dont too much else to worried about.the likes of de cock, Russell, sorrell, Richard hill and vyvyan are big players for them…andy farrell is out for the rest of the season with a dislocated shoulder.they are fierce inconsistent in the premiership…
i have a feeling that london irish could well run toulouse close…they have some fine players with big bob casey and kennedy in the second row about as good a pertnership as you will see along with the evergreen mike catt and shane geraghty(why the i.r.f.u didnt pull out all the stops to get him to play for ireland i dont know) pulling the strings in midfield while hodgson would have been englands no.1 scrum half if he hadnt been injuered before the start of the 6 nations…
A munster v london irish final has a nice ring to it…
Think Sarries is like the munster team of 1999/2000, heart and well organised but ultimately probably not enough quality or experience at this level to win it.
Not many of the sarries would get in thr Munster 22…Jackson, Visagie, Haughton maybe?? Even Richard Hill wouldnt I reckon…delighted for gaffney
i would agree dan…in fairness i always thought hill was the most underrated player in the 2003 world cup winning team but that was 5 years ago he must be touching 35 or 36 i would say… i remember he had a very serious injury after the world cup and hardly played again til the lions tour…very few would get in a 30 man munster squad let alone 22 imho…
hill is 35, would have loved to have him at Munster. A superb player in his day, ha fairly rolled back the years yesterday in fairness. Kind of fella youd bring into the jungle with you!
horrific run of injuries seriously curtailed his career.
heard onf of his teammtes, greenwodd maybe, paying a great tribute to him one night, couldnt have praised him more…think he said he was the only player never to be dropped by Woodward!! could have that arseways
heard onf of his teammtes, greenwodd maybe, paying a great tribute to him one night, couldnt have praised him more…think he said he was the only player never to be dropped by Woodward!! could have that arseways[/quote]
a friend of mine who is a bit of an anorac when it comes to rugby said the exact same thing to me yesterday…
i thought mafi hasn’t got the credit he deserved for his performance against gloucester even though he gave away a stupid penalty early on…after watching it again and he has improved immeasurably compared to the player he was a year/18 months ago…gets over the gai line every time and has a great step on him as well…and will only get better hopefully
Agreed on the improvement though. Last year he looked like a fairly exciting player but he seemed like a desparate throw of the dice to get some width into the game at the expense of any structure. He’s really come on loads since then however.
Jason Holland sourced the guy so that is good pedigree. Do you remember his (literally) first touch of the ball with Munster? See it here. I was watching it my jaw dropped couldnt fcukin believe what we were after getting!!! Was disapointed in him really after that but needed time to adapt I guess. Hes only a whip of a lad, if you saw him in the civvies youd reckon youd kick the shit out of him…skinny out.
Rocko…havent forgotten that Munster article but up to tonsils at work. Its long enough as well, its my HEC odessy, hopefully will be another chapter this year
Three things that i think that mafi has dramatically improved on this year are his defence, discipline and decision making/reading of the game…before he used to get to his man but fail to put in a hit or stop his man in the tackle…with the opening moments of saturdays game aside he has stopped giving away stupid penalties especially if he was at a ruck he had a stupid habit of coming in from the side but this seems to have stopped(remember his turnover away to clermont on his own 5 metre line)…while his ability to off load has improved greatly he must have off loaded 5 or 6 times out of the tackle in the first half alone last saturday…
My only hope is that our lads give a few of the Munster boys a good rattle in the Magner’s League game this weekend and put some manners on them like we did in Musgrave Park earlier on this season and dent their confidence ahead of the last four. It would sicken me to see Declan Kidney win another Heineken Cup after what he did to us. Just hoping London Irish can go the whole way now on behalf of the Irish diaspora congregated all around the world.
in fairness that game was probably the catalyst for munster to kick on and get out of their pool…foley was brought back into the back row after that and it had a huge bearing on how we approached the llanelli away match and the wasps match at home which were also played in dour conditions…
think it could be an interesting game…would expect 5 or 6 changes to the munster team but a strong enought team all the same…does anyone know is it on setanta ireland or setanta 1
disappointing result yesterday but i wont lose to much sleep about it…watched the match but for the life of me i cant remember much of it…Fucking cider…hopefully o gara and stringer are alright…fair play to leinster thoroughly deserve the magners league title hopefully they might take some of the form into the heineken cup next year(van der linde and reddan will be big additions for them)…watched a bit of gloucester v saracens saturday afternoon and i think that we have nothing to fear in the semis and would expect this munster team to do a professional job and brush them aside…
Shaun Payne; Brian Carney, Barry Murphy, Kieran Lewis, Anthony Horgan; Paul Warwick; Tomas O’Leary; Federico Pucciariello, Frank Sheahan,Tony Buckley; Mick O’Driscoll, Paul O’Connell capt; Donnacha Ryan, Niall Ronan, Denis Leamy.
Replacements: Marcus Horan, Jerry Flannery, Anthony Foley, David Wallace, Peter Stringer, Jeremy Manning, Keith Earls.
good to see barry murphy getting a start…hear he has been going well for bohs…strong enough team considering there are 12 changes…
good result last night…good performances all around the park with freddie, o leary, warwick horgan and payne all having fine games and a very hoinest effort from the back row…keith earls made a nice cameo despite getting a dose of white line fever…
Very surprised Munster didn’t manage to sell their full allocation for the HEC semi-final. Too much of a good thing or a bit of arrogance in saving cash for the final?
When the semi-final fixtures were announced I recall reading in the Irish Times that the ERC had messed up by having the Munster game at Coventry with the other match in Twickenham. But Munster have returned 2,500 tickets and only sold 12,000 - that’s more than any other team but it’s still far lower than I thought they’d have sold.
just over 72 hours to go and i cant wait…would expect the team to be pretty similar to the team that beat gloucester with the only change being horan returning at loose head…i wonder would kidney go for a 5-2 split on the bench with a full front row in reserve of sheehan puciarello and mushie…with o leary giving cover to the backs in case of injury with stringer and warwick on the bench…a lot of people are saying it should be a handy win or that munster will be complacent…i dont see this happening but i do think that saracens wont be easy but would expect munster to triumph on a scoreline of:
Munster 19 saracens 8
[quote=“therock67”]Very surprised Munster didn’t manage to sell their full allocation for the HEC semi-final. Too much of a good thing or a bit of arrogance in saving cash for the final?
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Find that surprising myself. Probably a bit of both. Is the game going to be well short of capacity? I’d wonder if the move to Sky has damaged the competition a bit.
i doubt it will be well short of capacity…it takes 32000 would expect there to be at least 26000 at the minimum…but more will show on the day and go on spec looking for tickets
i dont think its the move to sky i just think the money isnt there any more for fellas to be going to every away match…i was inb coventry in november and cardiff in february for matches and you are talking easily the bones of €600 at least a trip…both times got cheap flights and hotel…