Leinster Rugby vs Munster Rugby
United Rugby Championship
Aviva Stadium, Dublin
Saturday, 22nd October 2022, 17:15

TV: Live: Premier Sports, RTE2

It's Leinster v Munster at the Aviva this Saturday evening.

It's not really a fixture to quicken the blood anymore first because of the rather soulless location and secondly because of the lack of jeopardy in the fixture for Leinster. In the last fourteen meetings between the two sides, Munster have only won twice and one of them was a meaningless Rainbow Cup fixture that Leinster virtually conceded as it came the week before a European semi-final. From the glory days when it was close to selling out most of the time the crowd has gradually been reducing and there were loads of empty seats there last May.

With the rising cost of travel and the obscene prices for accommodation in Dublin, you can't really blame Munster fans for not making the trip. But at least those Munster fans that are attending will travel with some hope in their heart after they beat the Bulls last week. It was a badly needed boost for the new Munster coaching team led by Graham Rowntree. In their first four games they had lost away to Cardiff Blues, the Dragons and Connacht and even their one win over Zebre was blackened by their failure to score a bonus point try despite having 55 minutes to do so. There was much talk of Munster struggling to adapt to new attack coach Mike Prendergast's attacking gameplan but honestly it was hard to discern exactly what they were even trying to do such was the lack of basic skills in every facet of the game.

The Bulls came to Thomond park last week fancying their chances but Munster faced them down with a tough, physical performance. They didn't suddenly start playing like the All Blacks and most of their four tries came from the usual close range pick and drives. But there was some nice touches from Joey Carbery at out-half that suggested they could finally be going places. The win came at a cost though with prominent players like Peter O'Mahony, Craig Casey and Tadhg Beirne sustaining knocks. So Rowntree has made eight changes to the side that won last week and also two positional switches. Rowntree is leaning heavily on the players who impressed on the Emerging Ireland tour to South Africa.

One of those players, out-half Jack Crowley, is named at full-back for the first time and Shane Daly shifts to the right wing to replace the injured Calvin Nash with Liam Coombes continuing on the left wing. Rory Scannell comes in at inside centre with Dan Goggin moving to the outside channel. In the pack Diarmuid Barron and Keynan Knox come in to start alongside Jeremy Loughman in the front row. Jack O'Donoghue, Tom Ahern and John Hodnett all come into the back five to join Jean Kleyn and Gavin Coombes who was very impressive last week scoring two tries.

For Leinster it was a typical wet and windy night in Galway as they ground out a 10-0 win. Leinster totally dominated the first twenty minutes but some uncharacteristic handing errors and some totally characteristic James Ryan terrible lineout calls let Connacht off the hook. Then the rain hit and it became virtually impossible to catch a ball. To be fair to Connacht they came back at Leinster hard but just couldn't convert their chances against an excellent Leinster defence which, according to the official match stats, only missed two tackles in the whole game! It came at a cost though with man of the match Josh van der Flier picking up a late injury.

He's replaced by Scott Penny in one of nine changes to the starting team from last week. Skipper Johnny Sexton is back at out-half and Luke McGrath is back from injury to partner him. Ciaran Frawley is named at full-back with Jamie Osborne named for the first time on the wing. Robbie Henshaw comes back in to partner Garry Ringrose at centre.

Cian Healy starts at loosehead prop alongside Dan Sheehan (the hardest working man in Irish rugby at the moment) and Tadhg Furlong. Despite going off injured last week James Ryan is named again at lock and Jason Jenkins comes in to partner him. Jenkins will be very eager to show his former Munster team-mates what they let go so expect some fireworks there. Two more players from the Emerging Ireland tour Max Deegan and Penny come into the back row with Caelan Doris shifting to number eight.

Both sides have an unfamiliar look to them with all the injuries, but Leinster look to have a core of players strong enough to keep their winning streak going.

by Jim O'Connor, © 2022-10-21