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Exeter missing Sam Simmonds as Munster bring back their stars
By Liam Heagney
Sam Simmonds will be absent for Exeter this Saturday in Limerick as they seek to protect a five-point first leg European advantage against a Munster XV that has recalled big names in the guise of skipper Peter O'Mahony, Joey Carbery and Simon Zebo. The Chiefs won last weekend's round of 16 opener at Sandy Park by 13-8 but they now must do without England and Lions Test player Simmonds, who was voted European player of the year when Exeter clinched a European/Gallagher Premiership double in 2020.
Jannes Kirsten comes into the starting side at openside flanker with Jacques Vermeulen moving to No8 in place of Simmonds, whose absence is attributed to a hip injury. Exeter boss Rob Baxter was left to rue some missed chances last weekend against an understrength Munster XV and they will now have their work cut out defending their slender lead against a rejigged opposition that includes O'Mahony and Carbery following their respective recoveries from hamstring and knee injuries and the return of Zebo following a bout of gastro.
O'Mahony will start at blindside with Jack O'Donoghue moving to No8 and Alex Kendellen dropping to the bench having come through his return to play protocol after he played just 28 minutes last weekend. Carbery, meanwhile, takes over at out-half in place of Ben Healy while Zebo is back on the wing for Shane Daly.
At the end of a week in which they confirmed that assistant Graham Rowntree will succeed the Bath-bound Johann van Graan as head coach, the other two changes for Munster come in the front row where Josh Wycherley and John Ryan are the starting props instead of Jeremy Loughman and Stephen Archer.
Exeter boss Baxter said: “People have been saying Munster will create this and Munster will create that, the reality is we have to create something ourselves. I want us to go over there and create a great, emotional performance ourselves. I want to see our guys look at each other in the changing rooms, nod their heads, and go out there and create the game we want to win the game.
“We have got a lot of pride and a lot of desire to do well in this competition. It isn’t just about other teams, it’s about us as well. We are going to out there and play to win the game. You can’t really judge the success of the first leg until you have played the second leg. Having said that, if we talk just about the performance last week, I was really pleased. It looked like we had found something about us that will make us a very hard team to beat. In any successful side, that’s the first quality you have to have."
MUNSTER: 15. Mike Haley; 14. Keith Earls, 13. Chris Farrell, 12. Damian de Allende, 11. Simon Zebo; 10. Joey Carbery, 9. Conor Murray; 1. Josh Wycherley, 2. Niall Scannell, 3. John Ryan, 4. Jean Kleyn, 5. Fineen Wycherley, 6. Peter O’Mahony (capt), 7. John Hodnett, 8. Jack O’Donoghue. Reps: 16. Diarmuid Barron, 17. Jeremy Loughman, 18. Stephen Archer, 19. Jason Jenkins, 20. Thomas Ahern, 21. Craig Casey, 22. Ben Healy, 23. Alex Kendellen.
EXETER: 15. Stuart Hogg; 14. Olly Woodburn, 13. Henry Slade, 12. Ian Whitten, 11. Tom O'Flaherty; 10. Joe Simmonds, 9. Sam Maunder; 1. Alec Hepburn, 2. Jack Yeandle (capt), 3. Harry Williams, 4. Jonny Gray, 5. Sam Skinner, 6. Dave Ewers, 7. Jannes Kirsten, 8. Jacques Vermeulen. Reps: 16. Jack Innard, 17. Billy Keast, 18. Patrick Schickerling, 19. Richard Capstick, 20. Santiago Grondona, 21. Jack Maunder, 22. Tom Gilbert-Hendrickson, 23. Josh Hodge.
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Latest Comments
The only benefit of the draft idea is league competitiveness. There would be absolutely no commercial value in a draft with rugby’s current interest levels.
I wonder what came first in america? I’m assuming it’s commercial aspect just built overtime and was a side effect essentially.
But the idea is not without merit as a goal. The first step towards being able to implement a draft being be creating it’s source of draftees. Where would you have the players come from? NFL uses college, and players of an age around 22 are generally able to step straight into the NFL. Baseball uses School and kids (obviously nowhere near pro level being 3/4 years younger) are sent to minor league clubs for a few years, the equivalent of the Super Rugby academies. I don’t think the latter is possible legally, and probably the most unethical and pointless, so do we create a University scene that builds on and up from the School scene? There is a lot of merit in that and it would tie in much better with our future partners in Japan and America.
Can we used the club scene and dispose of the Super Rugby academies? The benefit of this is that players have no association to their Super side, ie theyre not being drafted elshwere after spending time as a Blues or Chiefs player etc, it removes the negative of investing in a player just to benefit another club. The disadvantage of course is that now the players have nowhere near the quality of coaching and each countries U20s results will suffer (supposedly).
Or are we just doing something really dirty and making a rule that the only players under the age of 22 (that can sign a pro contract..) that a Super side can contract are those that come from the draft? Any player wanting to upgrade from an academy to full contract has to opt into the draft?
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You’ve got the perfect structure to run your 1A and 1B on a quota of club representation by Province. Have some balance/reward system in place to promote and reward competitiveness/excellence. Say each bracket has 12 teams, each province 3 spots, given the Irish Shield winner once of the bottom ranked provinces spots, so the twelve teams that make up 1A are 4 from Leinster, 3 each from Connacht and Munster, and 2 from Ulster etc. Run the same rule over 1B from the 1A reults/winner/bottom team etc. I’d imagine IRFU would want to keep participation to at least two teams from any one province but if not, and there was reason for more flexibility and competitveness, you can simply have other ways to change the numbers, like caps won by each province for the year prior or something.
Then give those clubs sides much bigger incentive to up their game, say instead of using the Pro sides for the British and Irish Cup you had going, it’s these best club sides that get to represent Ireland. There is plenty of interest in semi pro club cup competitions in europe that Ireland can invest in or drive their own creation of.
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