In Pics: Preparations For Zebre

View our training gallery and get the thoughts of Assistant Coach Ian Costello as Munster prepare to face Zebre in round 13 of the Guinness PRO12 on Saturday.

The first squad session of the week took place in CIT yesterday after which Ian Costello spoke with media, reflecting on a tough interprovincial loss to Connacht but also emphasising the importance of lessons learnt and the need to focus on the job at hand this weekend.

“It’s always tough when you lose a derby match as our standards are set very high. However the reality is you don’t have much time to lick your wounds afterwards. We’ve massive games in the next couple of weeks so we have to pick ourselves up, identify the key factors we need to work on and put them into practice this week.

“It’s always been a tough place to go (Zebre). It was a very physical game in Thomond Park in round 3. We had to make just short of 160 tackles which is a very high tackle count.

“They have a couple of key figures that are strong ball carriers. Brendan Leonard (former All Black scrum half) is very influential, as is Kelly Haimona who is playing with the Italian team at the moment so I think they’re a far better side than they were in round 3.

“Maybe the results haven’t gone their way, they’ve had a lot of narrow losses so we’re not being complacent. We’re well prepared, same as we would be for any PRO12 team.”

See the action shots from training yesterday by clicking here.

Zebre v Munster, Guinness PRO12 Round 13, Saturday January 10th at the Stadio XXV Aprile – KO 3pm Irish time.