Penney: Big Performance Needed In Newport

The province’s head coach Rob Penney met with media at Cork IT today where he issued a further update on player availability for the round 9 league encounter.

In addition to yesterday’s positive news on Keith Earls, Ian Keatley and Luke O’Dea, latest arrival Gerhard van den Heever and James Downey – both groin injury victims – are also back in full training this week and all are available for selection.

The Ireland trio of Conor Murray, Paul O’Connell and Peter O’Mahony are back in the Munster set-up this week and the management will discuss their availability options in the next 24 hours.

Early indications for flanker O’Mahony are that he will not be fit for this weekend’s game after sustaining a dead leg in the GUINNESS Series clash with New Zealand.

Niall Ronan (knee) continues to be monitored and he is expected to meet with the specialist for a further update early next week.

Meanwhile, David Foley has also been ruled out of contention for the Newport tie as a result of the tight hamstring he suffered against Cardiff Blues last Saturday.

Penney believes Munster will have to be at the peak of their abilities when taking on the Dragons after the Welsh region recorded an impressive away victory in Glasgow.

“The Dragons are a really good team and are tough at the best of times, and we are now taking them on after they have had a really great result against Glasgow up there, so we really need to put in a big performance if we want to keep our consistency and momentum up,” he said.

“We are not playing as well as we would like, but we still have some growth in us and we just need to keep getting the results.”

Please note that Friday night’s game between Munster and the Dragons will not be televised. Match updates will be issued via Twitter here.