{"id":633065,"date":"2026-09-23T02:56:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T02:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/633065\/"},"modified":"2026-09-23T02:56:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T02:56:08","slug":"munster-forwards-coach-confident-province-has-depth-to-endure-injury-prompted-outhalf-shortage-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/633065\/","title":{"rendered":"Munster forwards coach confident province has depth to endure injury-prompted outhalf shortage \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">News that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/munster-rugby\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/munster-rugby\/\">Munster<\/a>\u2019s academy outhalf Tom Wood will be sidelined until the end of the year following shoulder surgery has compounded Jack Crowley\u2019s concurrent absence for the province.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/clayton-mcmillan\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/clayton-mcmillan\/\">Clayton McMillan<\/a>\u2019s side face Glasgow in their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/united-rugby-championship\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/united-rugby-championship\/\">URC<\/a> opener on Saturday (kick-off 5.30pm) at Thomond Park, where Wood\u2019s fellow academy outhalf Charlie O\u2019Shea may start in his senior competitive debut if JJ Hanrahan doesn\u2019t come through return-to-play protocols.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">O\u2019Shea started Munster\u2019s final preseason game last Friday, a 32-24 defeat to Leicester in Cork.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cWhen he presented last week during the (squad) meeting, you would say he has 200 caps in the way he spoke,\u201d said Munster forwards coach Jimmy Duffy of the 20-year-old. \u201cIf you\u2019re good enough, you\u2019re getting the opportunities, and he\u2019s been magnificent. As all the lads have been, I can\u2019t fault anyone.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cWe haven\u2019t played a competitive game yet. We obviously had our preseason games, but (O\u2019Shea\u2019s) a really impressive young man, and ably assisted by the guys around him like JJ, and Jack, and Tom. They\u2019re all talking and sharing, and then competing, which is a big thing. He\u2019s been impressing me and the other staff daily.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Switching focus to Glasgow, Duffy said: \u201cThey\u2019re top of the league in most statistics. They\u2019re very, very strong in attack, a very big maul, a very big scrum.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cThey love to counter-attack, they come and get you in defence. There\u2019s a reason they\u2019re in and around the Champions Cup knockouts last year and (URC) champions two seasons ago.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Describing Franco Smith\u2019s charges as a \u201csettled\u201d and \u201cmature\u201d side, Duffy added: \u201cThey\u2019re a solid bunch of international players who like to attack and like to hurt you when they can.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"News that Munster\u2019s academy outhalf Tom Wood will be sidelined until the end of the year following shoulder&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":633066,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[11896,61,60,11897,112,14881],"class_list":["post-633065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-clayton-mcmillan","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-munster-rugby","tag-sports","tag-united-rugby-championship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=633065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633065\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/633066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}