Aston Martin Racing Suit<\/a><\/p>\nShould Smith fail to recover from his knee injury in time for the visit of the Top 14 outfit, head coach Anthony Foley has Pat Howard, Johne Murphy and Ivan Dineen to choose from in the 13 shirt.<\/p>\n
Australian Smith was injured after replacing the concussed Howard during last weekend\u2019s win over Ulster. The latter, a recent signing from Western Province in South Africa, has been added to Munster\u2019s Champions Cup squad and is expected to have fully recovered from his head injury before Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously Andrew picked up a bang on his knee at the weekend and the swelling hasn\u2019t gone down yet,\u201d said Foley in Limerick yesterday evening. \u201cWe need to constantly monitor that and see where he\u2019s at.<\/p>\n
\u201cIvan Dineen did a good job at 13 for the As, and Johne Murphy has done a job for us at 13 during the season as well. We do have numbers, we have bodies there that will do a good job for us. It depends who\u2019s called upon.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the beauty of having players in and around the squad, it gives you those opportunities to create competition.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Fofana is likely to keep Munster’s midfield occupied. Source: Inpho\/Billy Stickland<\/p>\n
Whoever does line up alongside Denis Hurley in Munster\u2019s midfield is likely to have a busy afternoon against Wesley Fofana and one of Aur\u00e9lien Rougerie\u00a0or Jonathan Davies. The Welshman has yet to show his finest form for Clermont, while veteran Rougerie has strung together several impressive displays.<\/p>\n
Irish rugby fans have come to associate Brock James, and his supposed mental fragility, with Clermont in recent times, but the form of Camille Lopez means the Australian has been usurped in the 10 shirt.<\/p>\n
Having joined from Perpignan last summer \u2013 after a season on the sidelines with an ACL injury \u2013 Lopez has now established himself as France\u2019s out-half too.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s got a bit more structure to his game and puts them in the right areas to launch their attacks off. They\u2019ve got him and Brock James.<\/p>\n
\u201cLopez would have gone off injured in France\u2019s last game against Argentina, so we need to see whether he\u2019ll tog out, or Brock James. They\u2019re two good out-halves who both have good kicking games which, in what you\u2019d imagine to be a tight game, will have a big influence.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clermont may have several important selection calls to make, but Munster should have a settled matchday 23 again, even if Smith and Copeland aren\u2019t involved.<\/p>\n
Foley will look to a similar formula that brought victory over Saracens back in October.<\/p>\n
Possible Munster XV: F Jones; A Conway, P. Howard\/J. Murphy, D Hurley, S. Zebo; I Keatley, C. Murray; D. Kilcoyne, D. Casey, B.J. Botha; D. Foley, P.O\u2019Connell; P. O\u2019Mahony, T. O\u2019Donnell, C.J. Stander.<\/p>\n
Connacht likely to save Henshaw for Leinster clash, Roux hopes to prove fitness for BayonneMunster look to carry Ireland\u2019s November momentum into Clermont ties<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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MUNSTER\u2019S FIRST-CHOICE XV has had a relatively settled look to it this season, but a knee injury to centre Andrew Smith could see a change in midfield for the Champions Cup clash with Clermont on Saturday. Back row Robin Copeland, who has been a replacement in both of Munster\u2019s European ties so far this season, … <\/p>\n
Read more “Munster may be forced into midfield switch against Lopez-led Clermont”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13144\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}