Munster Women Gear Up for Interpro Final

The women’s Interprovincial senior final between Munster and Leinster this Saturday promises to be one of the tightest affairs in the history of this competition.

Munster take on Leinster in Galway and with the southern province winning out on a narrow 12-8 scoreline earlier on in the competition, this game is too hard to call.

The Munster team shows a few changes to the team that beat Leinster last time around with flanker Aoife Mahony and Sandra Williams dropped to the bench in favour of Eimear O’Sullivan and Nicole Fitzgerald.

Mahony, who has started every game so far, is desperately unlucky to miss out as she is in top form this year.

The selectors have opted to go with the vastly more experienced Eimear O’Sullivan to combine with last year’s player of the season Paula O’Connor and Irish number 8 Joy Neville.

Nicole Fitzgerald comes back into out-half after missing the last game through injury and the reshuffle in the backline means the young Nenagh player Sandra Williams loses out.

Leinster will be confident travelling to the west after they came close to defeating the champions in their game a few weeks ago.
They’ll welcome back ex-Irish lock Geri Healy, who should make a significant difference to their pack play, and out wide they have the talent in the likes of Grace Davitt and former Munster winger Lynne Cantwell to cause problems.

Cantwell will be a well known face to the Munster team, having lined out for the province successfully for many years, and her clubmates at UL-Bohemians will know all about the threat she poses.

In the other game of the day, Connacht and Ulster will play off in the third and fourth placed play off.

Connacht have warmed up for their games by playing a number of sevens games against a visiting Lithuania outfit.

MUNSTER: A Greensmith,M Kelly, H Brosnan, P Kelly, K Fitzpatrick, N Fitzgerald, L Beamish, L Guest, J Lonergan, M Barrett, D Scannell, K O’Loughin, E O’Sullivan, P O’Connor, J Neville.
Subs: N O’Keeffe, D Jennings, A Mahony, C Muhphy, N Briggs, S Ftizpatrick, C Bracken
Coaches: Fiona Steed, Donal O’Driscoll.
Managers: Kate McCarthy, Regina O’Reilly.


Leinster Squad (Team TBC).
F Coughlan, Y Nolan, E McNamamly, CMcMahon, L Austin, D Clarke, S Ryan,O Brennan, L Comerford, S Houston, J Doyle, J Shields, LCantwell, G Doyle, G Davitt, G Healy, J Craig, E Farrell, B Byrne, O Creedon, C Kennedy, L Murphy, S Delaney.
Coaches: Ray Ward, Keith Murray.
Manager: Tania Rosser.

Fixtures:
Saturday October 27th.
Connacht V Ulster 1pm

Munster V Leinster 2.45pm

Sportsground Galway.