Munster’s Billy Holland Unworried By Leinster Lineout Malfunction

Munster veteran Billy Holland has insisted that there will be no “intensive” review of the province’s lineout following a shaky day at the office against Leinster.

Munster had a lineout success rate of just 9/15 against the PRO14 champions on Saturday evening. However, the 35 year-old second row says there will be no great changes made in training this week.

“We review it every week whether we win 100 percent or lose a few balls. We have the same process each week. Our lineout has been excellent. Yeah, it malfunctioned at the weekend which isn’t ideal in a big game. Conditions weren’t easy but we had a look at it and maybe we pushed things a little bit too much.

“You gotta give credit to Leinster’s lineout defence as well. If you look at the two games at the Aviva earlier in the season – we cleaned them out in the first game and they stole a few balls off of us in the second game. Both teams know eachother so well so it does make it more difficult, but yeah we had the exact same review this week.”

Holland was also asked about how he has found working with the young players in the Munster squad and how their application compares to some of the great players that he has shared dressing rooms with in the past.

“Really well. There’s a lot of impressive guys coming through. In the block of games during the Autumn Nations Cup and Six Nations we really grew as a group, grew as a team and there was a lot of good performances. You see the likes of Craig Casey who got a run of games and now he’s in the Ireland squad.

“The likes of Gavin Coombes cemented his place at that time and has played in all the big games since. There’s other guys below them – younger fellas who are coming through. The two international windows are very important from a squad point of view. You often see lads from the provinces playing well during those periods and then a year later they’re playing international rugby so I think that’s something Irish teams do really well.”

Billy Holland is expected to captain a young Munster team against Benneton this Saturday at 17:00.