Penney: Finding Faults Will Be The Most Difficult Part

Munster Coach Rob Penney admits that the most difficult part of reviewing Saturday’s win over Edinburgh will be highlighting the faults.

Munster showed tremendous attacking verve with a mix sharp and blunt weapons used with Denis Hurley, Ivan Dineen, JJ Hanrahan, James Cronin and James Coughlan each crossing the try-line in the 34-23 win at Musgrave Park.

“Going through the review,” Penney told Red FM’s Big Red Bench today, “it was really a pleasure to review that performance for a number of reasons.

“The guys are really proud of the effort they put in and the key is that we keep backing those performances up now.

“We’ll have to be up for it, it’ll be a very challenging experience for the group that goes out there.”

“We’ve got some ability across the park and they’ve really set the standard for us.”

The next task for Penney will be to bring a bumper squad (less Paul O’Connell and Conor Murray who are still progressing with pre-season) to Italy for nine days and two games; against Zebre and Treviso.

“We’ve got a bit of footage,” Penney adds of Friday’s opponent, Zebre.

“They were pretty robust against Connacht – They’ll be heading home with a desire to get their new stadium off to a winning start. That will bring some hurdles of their own.”

The last meeting between the sides ended in a narrow win 25-27 win for Munster after a 75th minute converted try from BJ Botha.  Penney concedes that the last game of the season was a fortunate time to meet the newest Pro12 outfit.

“It was a great time to play them. We ran out a lot of young guys after the disappointment of the ERC semi-final loss to Clermont and they performed really admirably.

“Zebre are a difficult side, a challenging side, even more difficult at home. But the boys ground out a result at the end and we created a few opportunities we didn’t capitalise on.

“They’re dogged, they’re tough  a very proud team and they’ve go some good players in there, they’re not the rollover team people think they are.”

*Article Source: TheScore.ie

Here’s the side that will take on Zebre on Friday night.

Munster: Denis Hurley; Johne Murphy, Casey Laulala, Ivan Dineen, Andrew Conway; JJ Hanrahan, Cathal Sheridan; Dave Kilcoyne, Damien Varley Capt., John Ryan; Donnacha Ryan, Ian Nagle; CJ Stander, Tommy O’Donnell, Paddy Butler. Replacements: Mike Sherry, James Cronin, Stephen Archer, Dave Foley, Niall Ronan, Duncan Williams, Ian Keatley, James Downey.

Please note this game will not be televised but RTE 2 will show extended Zebre v Munster match highlights on Saturday from 5.05pm.