United Rugby Championship: Zebre v Munster, Stadio Sergio Lanfranchi, Saturday 3pm, Irish time (Live on RTÉ, Premier Sports)
Munster head coach Graham Rowntree has made a couple of injury-enforced changes in a team that shows four alterations and three positional switches from that which beat Connacht on the opening weekend of the United Rugby Championship (URC).
Ennis native Tony Butler is handed the 10 jersey after Billy Burns failed to recover from a shoulder injury while the hugely influential Alex Nankevill picked up a knock the last day and was ruled out. Butler showed impressive composure in landing two crucial place-kicks down the stretch upon his introduction.
Virtually the entire three-quarter line gets a shake. Tom Farrell moves to inside centre, Shane Daly joins him in midfield from the left wing, Irish international Calvin Nash comes in on the right wing, with Thaakir Abrahams moving to the other flank. Mike Haley remains in situ at fullback.
There are two changes in the frontrow, props Josh Wycherley and Oli Jager introduced to the run-on team. Hooker Diarmuid Barron takes over the captaincy. The back five in the pack remains unaltered and today’s game will mark a special occasion for one of them, Gavin Coombes, who will make his 100th appearance for the province.
The Counter Ruck: the rugby newsletter from The Irish Times
England coach Richard Wigglesworth unsure as to Felix Jones’ role in South Africa preparations
Farrell set to stay his hand on wholesale changes for Ireland XV against Argentina
High price of penalties left Ireland in the red against All Blacks
The 26-year-old number eight has been consistently excellent for his province, particularly in carrying his team over the gain-line and as he demonstrated last week in scoring tries; his strike-rate of one every 2.25 two matches is hugely impressive.
Jack Daly, Shay McCarthy and Conor Murray are among the replacements, set for their first appearances of the season while Garryowen centre Bryan Fitzgerald is also included and is in line for his competitive Munster debut.
Rowntree has elected to put two backrow forwards on the bench in Daly and O’Donoghue in the knowledge that the latter of Coombes could move into the secondrow. John Hodnett, another try scorer from the Connacht game spoke about the need to improve.
“There’s definitely a lot we can get better at but to win was the most important thing, and we got five points. Happy overall because there is a lot we can get better at some things in defence, some errors, but also the attack as well; we probably left a few tries behind us.”
He pointed to the threats that Zebre will pose. “They’re dangerous in counterattack and unstructured stuff; us respecting the ball will be important, you know being aware of their threats, what they are good at, trying to nullify that and then focus on ourselves.”
The Italian side picked up a losing bonus point in their 22-17 defeat in Cardiff but were left to rue a number of missed opportunities as head coach Massimo Brunello pointed out: “We’re facing a strong team [in Munster] that likes to keep the ball alive in every area of the field.
“We need to be disciplined and ruthless to keep the result in play. We need to improve our ruthlessness compared to Cardiff. The main goal is to put in another good performance to grow and build confidence in our style of play.”
Zebre Parma: G Prisciantelli; J Trulla, G Bertaccini, L Morisi, S Gesi; G Montemauri, A Fusco; D Fischetti (capt), T Di Bartolomeo, M Nocera; M Canali, L Krumov; D Ruggeri, S Locatelli, G Licata. Replacements: G Ribaldi, L Rizzoli, J Pitinari, A Zambonin, G Ferrari, P Baronio, S Gregory, G Da Re.
Munster: M Haley; C Nash, S Daly, T Farrell, T Abrahams; T Butler, C Casey; J Wycherley, D Barron (capt), O Jager; J Kleyn, F Wycherley; R Quinn, J Hodnett, G Coombes. Replacements: N Scannell, J Loughman, J Ryan, J Daly, J O’Donoghue, C Murray, B Fitzgerald, S McCarthy.
Referee: H Davidson (Scotland).
