Dec 20,2024
It was hard not to gasp when Munster and Ulster released their weekly injury reports within 20 minutes of each other on Monday evening.
You could come close to a pretty good combined XV of injured players between the two provinces for their meeting in Belfast this evening, but that is unlikely to dent the intensity of this festive Interpro.
Given how both teams have started the season, whoever is beaten tonight at Kingspan Stadium will be left with plenty to stew on over Christmas.
Hosts Ulster lie 10th in the table on 17 points, one place and one point ahead of Munster. With another round of Interpro games coming on 27/28 December to bring up the midway stage of the URC regular season, the next week will have a big say on how both sides feel heading into the new year.
"These are massive games anyway despite where you are in the table. Every year, these are games that you really want to win more than any others," Munster wing Shane Daly said earlier this week.
"It's the inter-provincial rivalries where a lot of us are friends, but when it comes to the game days, there's no friends involved, and it's about putting Munster back where it should be, which is the top of the log in those scenarios.
"So that's what we're pushing to do, and these games are hugely competitive for us."
Daly, who turned 28 yesterday, marked his 100th Munster appearance with a sensational try in their Investec Champions Cup win against Stade Francais earlier this month (below), but sat out last week's defeat to Castres as a precaution, having had to undergo a head injury assessment after the Stade victory.
And the Cork man says it was a special feeling to bring up a century of appearances in red.
"It's massive for me. My family are huge Munster fans. They would have been up at the game regardless of whether I was playing or not.
"A goal of mine was always to try to win as much for Munster as possible. So to have done that and to play it 100 times is something that I'm hugely grateful for, but I’m obviously still hungry for more.
"The last were great. Cossie [Ian Costello] spoke before the game. They gave me a jersey which is embroidered with 100 caps on it.
"I'm pretty sure I get a cap with some stage, a 100th cap, but that hasn't come yet. The lads are brilliant. They just kind of spoke nice words about me during the week and things like that.
"They make something out of it, which is nice because I'm not someone who really likes to celebrate myself too much. It was kind of landed on me, so it was nice," added Daly, who has won two Ireland caps."
While Daly and Gavin Coombes both return to the Munster line-up this week, the province’s defeat in France came at a major cost, with Craig Casey, Thaakir Abrahams, Peter O’Mahony, Diarmuid Barron and Dian Bleuler all picking up injuries, with Casey and Abrahams both set to be ruled out long term.
"It does have a bit of an impact, but you have a game six days' time, so it's very much next man up," Daly said of the injury list.
But the winger says that absentee list will be no excuse if Munster don’t polish up their performance, after a 16-14 defeat in Castres where they gave up 17 penalties.
"The big learning, I suppose, is about how we compounded errors in that game. I think if you look at how many times we let them off the hook when we're down in their 22 and went from penalty to lineout penalty unforced. And then we end up defending our own try line, so it's about our discipline. We gave away a lot more penalties than we've been giving away in the weeks previous.
"Obviously some of that was from good play from them that put us under pressure, but a lot of it was unforced, so over half the penalties we looked at could easily have been avoided.
"And then it's about not chasing things after you've given away a penalty to try and get the next one in your favour. And that's what was happening, lads would give away a penalty and then try to save the next moment and then giving away another penalty because they're forcing things.
"So just composure and trusting our system and those long sequences of play and not trying to force a turnover. It's about just trusting our defence, which has been good in multi-phase all season."
