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Two late changes for Munster, including the absence of Simon Zebo
By Liam Heagney
Irish hopes that Munster can ambush Exeter in their round of 16 Heineken Champions Cup clash in England on Saturday evening have been dented by two late withdrawals from their matchday 23, with Simon Zebo among the casualties.
The 32-year-old had come through unscathed after completing his recent return to play protocols for a head knock and was named on Friday in the Munster team to start at Sandy Park. However, his province have now confirmed that he will miss the match along with replacement Diarmuid Barron as both have taken ill.
A tweet from Munster read: "Team changes for #EXEvMUN. Shane Daly will start in place of Simon Zebo and academy hooker Scott Buckley takes the place of Diarmuid Barron in the replacements. Both Zebo and Barron are ruled out with acute gastro."
The loss of Zebo is the latest big blow for Munster heading into the first leg of the two-legged tie against the 2020 Gallagher Premiership and Champions Cup double champions.
It was Friday when they confirmed they would be without skipper Peter O'Mahony and out-half Joey Carbery for the difficult assignment in Devon. Both will be reassessed on Monday to check their availability for next Saturday's second leg in Limerick.
"A hamstring complaint has ruled out O’Mahony with the Munster captain to be reassessed on Monday ahead of the return fixture at Thomond Park," read the Munster team announcement. "Carbery presented with a low-grade leg/knee injury following the Leinster clash but is expected to make his return to full training on Monday."
All these absences have come on top of the loss of Gavin Coombes, the No8 whose ankle injury in last weekend's URC loss to Leinster required surgery that will sideline him until next month.
MUNSTER (revised, vs Exeter): Mike Haley; Keith Earls, Chris Farrell, Damian de Allende, Shane Daly; Ben Healy, Conor Murray; Jeremy Loughman, Niall Scannell, Stephen Archer, Jean Kleyn, Fineen Wycherley, Jack O’Donoghue (capt), John Hodnett, Alex Kendellen. Reps: Scott Buckley, Josh Wycherley, John Ryan, Jason Jenkins, Thomas Ahern, Craig Casey, Rory Scannell, Jack O’Sullivan.
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Latest Comments
Nah, that just needs some more variation. Chip kicks, grubber stabs, all those. Will Jordan showed a pretty good reason why the rush was bad for his link up with BB.
If you have an overlap on a rush defense, they naturally cover out and out and leave a huge gap near the ruck.
It also helps if both teams play the same rules. ARs set the offside line 1m past where the last mans feet were😅
Go to commentsYeah nar, should work for sure. I was just asking why would you do it that way?
It could be achieved by outsourcing all your IP and players to New Zealand, Japan, and America, with a big Super competition between those countries raking it in with all of Australia's best talent to help them at a club level. When there is enough of a following and players coming through internally, and from other international countries (starting out like Australia/without a pro scene), for these high profile clubs to compete without a heavy australian base, then RA could use all the money they'd saved over the decades to turn things around at home and fund 4 super sides of their own that would be good enough to compete.
That sounds like a great model to reset the game in Aus. Take a couple of decades to invest in youth and community networks before trying to become professional again. I just suggest most aussies would be a bit more optimistic they can make it work without the two decades without any pro club rugby bit.
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