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Red-carded Peter O'Mahony cleared to play
By Online Editors
Munster skipper Peter O'Mahony has been cleared to play despite last weekend's red card near the end of his team's Guinness PRO14 win at Scarlets.
The Ireland flanker was shown two separate yellow cards by referee Sam Grove-White during the game at Parc Y Scarlets, receiving the second of those for an intervention at the pile-up that followed Chris Farrell's second-half try.
Munster are due to face Edinburgh in round two of the new 2020/21 campaign and O'Mahony is available for selection following a PRO14 disciplinary ruling.
A statement from the tournament organisers read: "The judicial officer, Kathrine Mackie of Scotland, found after referring to the methodology in the disciplinary rules and the application of mitigating and aggravating features, that the sending off was sufficient. The player is available for selection on Saturday."
Munster meekly bowed out at the semi-final stages of the restarted 2019/20 PRO14 campaign last month, losing to Leinster, and the trip to Scarlets was their first outing in the weeks in between that loss and the start of the new league season.
Despite getting into disciplinary trouble last weekend in Wales, O'Mahony was named in the 35-strong Ireland squad named by Andy Farrell on Thursday ahead of the rescheduled Six Nations matches later this month against Italy and France.
O'Mahony was one of eight Munster players to make the cut. Andrew Conway, Shane Daly, Chris Farrell, Conor Murray, Tadhg Beirne, John Ryan, and CJ Stander were the other seven included while Craig Casey and Fineen Wycherley will train with Farrell's squad next week in Dublin.
On the injury front, Munster, who revealed one unnamed senior player tested positive for Covid-19 earlier this week, have lost Niall Scannell for two months as he requires surgery next week following a neck problem that happened in training.
Keith Earls, who missed out on Ireland selection, was also reported to be rehabbing a back injury.
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Latest Comments
Nice one John. I agree that defence (along with backfield kick receipt/positioning) remains their biggest issue, but that I did see some small improvements in it despite the scoreline like the additional jackal attempts from guys like tupou and the better linespeed in tight. But, I still see two issues - 1) yes they are jackaling, but as you point out they aren't slowing the ball down. I think some dark arts around committing an extra tackler, choke tackles, or a slower roll away etc could help at times as at the moment its too easy for oppo teams to get quick ball (they miss L wright). Do you have average ruck speed? I feel like teams are pretty happy these days to cop a tackle behind the ad line if they still get quick ball... and 2) I still think the defence wide of the 3-4th forward man out looks leaky and disconnected and if sua'ali'i is going to stay at 13 I think we could see some real pressure through that channel from other teams. The wallabies discipline has improved and so they are giving away less 3 pt opportunities and kicks into their 22 via penalty. Now, they need to be able to force teams to turnover the ball and hold them out. They scramble quite well once a break is made, but they seem to need the break to happen first... Hunter, marika and daugunu were other handy players to put ruck pressure on. Under rennie, they used to counter ruck quite effectively to put pressure on at the b/down as well.
Go to commentsYes, probably why he still annoys me even now
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