Good Friday Awaits

Went to TP on Friday night to see half the Scottish Team play half the Irish Team. Overall a good win and a good performance by Munster.

Clearly the Scots' resources are thinner than ours. Glasgow brought back almost all their internationals from the win over Ireland but clearly they were very tired. Parks kicked well but O'Gara (one opening penalty miss aside) matched him, including a superb touchline conversion to make the game safe. The famed Killer Bees were good but not at the level that they showed at Croke Park.

One slightly worrying note was the scrum. Franno made the point that Kaplan seemed to have decided to police the Irish scrum very closely against the Scots and penalised Irreland unduly. Friday night was similar with Munster being lectured to constantly - and penalised readily. Glasgow went to town on this and caused even more disruption with scrums being reset and free-kicks awarded. The slow hand claps in the second half from the knowledgable, but increasingly impolite, attendance told it all. It was very disappointing to hear jeering (no matter if by a small few) of Parks at penalty kicks.

JDV was pure class,and Mafi will be hard to drop, but Earls is needed at 13. I see an outside chance that Warwick will be dropped to play Earls at FB; Warwick's confidence level looks very low and his kicking to touch was hopeless.

Our back row played well, they forced some excellent turnovers in the second half and even though two of them were replaced, continuity was not a problem. Unfortunately for Glasgow, and this is where their resources are thin, they struggled to integrate their subs as effectively as Munster.

Leinster await, let's hope its a good friday for us. Print this post