Ireland international Tadhg Beirne returns to the starting team for his first appearance for Munster since January as they face to Exeter Chiefs in the Champions Cup last-16 on Saturday [12:30 BST].<\/p>\n
The 34-year-old is one of ten changes made by head coach Clayton McMillian to the starting team following their narrow 34-31 loss to the Bulls in the United Rugby Championship last week.<\/p>\n
Craig Casey, Jack Crowley, Ben O’Connor, Alex Nankivell and Alex Kendellen are the only players to survive.<\/p>\n
McMillan is without Diarmuid Barron, Calvin Nash and Brian Gleeson after the trip sustained concussions in South Africa while Fineen Wycherley and Jean Kleyn are ruled out through injury.<\/p>\n
Beirne, who was ever-present in Ireland’s Triple Crown winning Six Nations campaign, partners recent international Test debutant Edwin Edogbo in the second row with Gavin Coombes fit to start in the back row after recovering from an illness last weekend.<\/p>\n
Tom Farrell will start alongside Nankivell in the midfield with Thaakir Abrahams and Diarmuid Kilgallen taking their place on the wings while there could be a debut for former New Zealand U-20 scrum half Ben O’Donovan, who is named amongst the replacements following his recent signing from Canterbury.<\/p>\n
“It’s an opportunity to play for some silverware,” McMillan said ahead of the game.<\/p>\n
“I think it’s three games from here to the final of Challenge Cup and we have every intention of putting our best foot forward to try and do that.<\/p>\n
“It won’t be easy, but that’s where our mindset is at.<\/p>\n
“In the URC, the table is congested and there’s no easy games and everyone’s going to be scrapping for an opportunity to get into the top eight. So, I guess our overall mindset is from this point in, it’s knockout rugby and that’s the way we’re approaching it.”<\/p>\n
Munster: O’Connor; Abrahams, Farrell, Nankivell, Kilgallen; Crowley, Casey; Loughman, Barron, Ryan; Edogbo, Beirne (c); O’Donoghue, Kendellen, Coombes.<\/p>\n
Replacements: N Scannell, Milne, Ala’alatoa, Ahern, Quinn, O’Donovan, O’Brien, Hodnett.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ireland international Tadhg Beirne returns to the starting team for his first appearance for Munster since January as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":582673,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-582672","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=582672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/582673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}