In Pics: Preparations For Tigers

Munster continued preparations for this weekend’s return Champions Cup encounter against Leicester Tigers at Welford Road with the first squad session of the week at UL yesterday. View our Training Gallery and get the pre-match thoughts of Anthony Foley, Conor Murray and Mike Sherry.

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Despite losing 19-31 at Thomond Park on Saturday, when speaking with media post-training yesterday, Head Coach Anthony Foley highlighted a lot that was good about his side’s performance last Saturday, crediting ‘small margins’ as costing his side dearly in recent weeks.

“Small margins have cost us, that was the case against Connacht, Dragons and Tigers and we need to change those margins, turn them into positives rather than negatives.

“I’ve been through one or two of these campaigns in the past and I know that it can turn for you like it has in the past. It’s about staying in the moment and trusting the work that we are doing Monday to Friday and making sure that we turn up, be ourselves and play our game.

“We did that in chunks last weekend and if you look back at Mike Sherry’s try, I thought it was as good a try as I’ve seen a Munster team score. We’re well capable of getting a result but we’ve got to do the fundamentals, have an accurate set piece, protect the ball and have the ability to go forward. We have all that but we need to turn those fine margins in our favour and if we do that we have a good opportunity.”

The Head Coach’s sentiments were echoed by Conor Murray who is looking for an increase in precision this weekend.

“We’ve dusted ourselves off and addressed the mistakes, but more so we’ve looked at the things that went well for us. Personally I really enjoyed when we took it to them and played with our shape and structure – that caused them a lot of problems and allowed us to get in behind them. That was a real positive of the game and shows that if we play well against them it can work.

“But we will need to tighten up, be more accurate and finish off opportunities, especially this weekend as Tigers will be even better over there.”

Try scorer from last weekend, Mike Sherry, is another firmly focused on righting the wrongs of last weekend’s performance.

“Pretty much straight away the whole squad refocused and looked at this weekend as a huge opportunity as opposed to thinking ‘oh God we have to go over to Leicester now’.

“It’s a chance for us to re-establish ourselves in the pool, it’s something to look forward to and if that doesn’t excite you, you shouldn’t be playing rugby. Going over there with backs against the wall, it’s a huge chance for fellas to show what they can do in Munster. Travelling to England in European competition, there’s no bigger test really, against a very, very good side which we found out at the weekend.”

Leicester Tigers v Munster, European Champions Cup Round 4, Sunday December 20^th at Welford Road – KO 5.15pm.