MUNSTER RULE OUT ANY SHORT-TERM SIGNINGS
MUNSTER have backed their next generation to step up and steer the province through an earlyseason injury crisis. The Reds were already without Joey Carbery for the foreseeable future, but there was further bad news following last Saturday’s 27-25 loss to Leinster with RG Snyman set to miss the entire campaign with a torn ACL while Jean Kleyn, Dave Kilcoyne and James Cronin are also out of action. It leaves Munster short on experience at out-half, loosehead prop and lock but assistant coach Stephen Larkham has ruled out any short-term signings to bolster his injury-ravaged squad, with a clutch of academy products poised to see game time in the coming months. ‘We’ve got Ben Healy, Jake Flannery and Jack Crowley who have been training with us for the last couple of months,’ he said, citing Munster’s trio of young No10s. ‘We have a lot of confidence in those guys. We certainly feel they understand the system quite well so we are quite comfortable putting those guys in if we need to.’ ‘From a second-row perspective, Tadhg Beirne is back, which gives us a little bit of depth. Billy Holland is all good. ‘Fineen Wycherley is back as well,’ he added. ‘I think it is timely for those guys coming back in. We also got some academy players, Thomas Ahern is showing a lot of promise. Paddy Kelly also. Both are good young prospects who we would be very comfortable putting in the main team.’ Meanwhile, Larkham confirmed that the academy player who went into self isolation following a positive test for Covid-19 has made a full recovery. ‘It’s all clear, so we had to go through the protocols there, multiple tests with the couple of players who had close contacts with him. ‘They’ve gone through their 14-day quarantining period and they’ve all come through fit and healthy,’ he added. ‘None of the other guys tested positive, whether you know that or not, I’m not sure. ‘But in terms of the player who tested positive, it’s just a process now where we have to monitor his return to play. ‘So he was out for 14 (days) and you get knocked around, obviously, with the virus, everyone gets affected differently but you get a little bit knocked around and he certainly did. ‘We’ve got to make sure we build him back up and that he’s right to perform when he gets back into full training.’