Foley On Gloucester Countdown

We get the thoughts of Head Coach Anthony Foley on Munster’s season opener against Gloucester, taking place in Kingsholm this Saturday at 3pm.

Fair to say Munster and Gloucester will be well acquainted with each other come kick-off on Saturday. Both sides faced-off twice in the pool stages of last season’s Heineken Cup, while previous European campaigns saw the teams meet on five occasions, including one quarter-final in 2008. The Englishmen also travelled to Musgrave Park and Thomond Park for pre-season action in 2010 and 2013 respectively.

When asked for his thoughts on this weekend’s game, Foley alluded to the competitive yet cordial relationship that has development between both teams and their fans.

“We have a good history with Gloucester, as do our fans who like to travel to Kingsholm, while their supporters like to visit us in Musgrave and Thomond. We’re also well familiar with their coaching setup, Laurie (Fisher) being a former Forwards Coach for us and David Humphries formerly of Ulster and Ireland is their new Director of Rugby. There will be a lot of friendly faces on the field before and after the game, but certainly not during.”

Foley went on to give this thoughts on his first preseason at the helm and hinted at possible inclusions on his first team sheet.

“It’s gone really well with a lot of players hitting their fitness personal bests. However for me the real test comes this weekend. We need to see results on the pitch and the quality of a side like Gloucester will make it a massive challenge for us.

“Hopefully we can get a result in our pre-season games, but first and foremost they are about learning and assessing where we are – what’s working, what’s not working – and if there's something that needs changing we’ll address it quickly.

“We’ll have a mixture of Senior and Academy players, some of which will only have a handful of games under their belt. They say you only get one chance to make a first impression and this is their opportunity to do so in a Munster jersey. We won’t announce the squad until later in the week but what I can say is some of those in contention impressed us while playing in the recent Limerick 7s. Hopefully now the emerging lads put in a performance and put their hands up for their future.”

Munster fans call follow all the action live on Twitter – @munsterrugby or on a live blog through the Gloucester Rugby website, details of which will be announced here in the coming days.