In Pics: Preparations For Scarlets

Munster continued their preparations for Saturday’s Guinness PRO12 encounter with Scarlets yesterday. View our training gallery and get the pre-match thoughts of Assistant Coach Ian Costello here.

View the actions shots from training at UL yesterday here.

Munster will no doubt take confidence from last weekend’s impressive victory over Cardiff Blues at Irish Independent Park, however Costello feels this weekend will be a more arduous test for his side as they look for their first league win at Parc y Scarlets since April 2011.

“It’s never an easy place to go and especially this year as Scarlets are unbeaten at home, winning six and drawing one, and if you look at the points average, they have the highest points average across the PRO12 at home and they’ve scored more tries at home than anybody else.

“If you were just to take their home form they’d be ranked number one in the PRO12 so we’re under no illusions as to what we’re facing this weekend. It’s going to be a massive test defensively because they are a really exciting attacking team – they attack from deep, they’ve a very impressive skill set and are very dangerous from unstructured play in particular. In fact they have more tries from counter attack than anybody else.

“That’s the defensive side of it and to complement that, the attack is going to be about controlling the ball – keeping the ball, don’t allow them opportunities and don’t turn over the ball where they are particularly dangerous. It will be about us controlling the ball and the pace of the game.”

The Assistant Coach also recalled last season’s defeat to the Llanelli outfit, 18-13, a scoreline which might not fully reflect the physical dominance of Scarlets throughout that game.

“There is a fine tradition there and it was a very difficult place to go all last season. Last time there we were ambushed a little bit and physically we were beaten up. We came out the back end with quite a thumping and we know exactly what to expect this weekend and we’re preparing for that.

“We had a really good session today (Tuesday) and we know it will be another step up from last weekend and we’ve prepared accordingly – making sure that our mind-set is right and ready to meet that physicality on Saturday.”

Scarlets v Munster, Guinness PRO12 Round 15, Saturday February 21st at Parc y Scarlets – KO 2:40pm.

This game will be televised on Sky Sports while you can also follow the action on Twitter: @munsterrugby #ScaVMun