MUNSTER head coach Johann van Graan has accepted his side’s underdog status ahead of their Pro14 semi-final clash with Leinster but insists his players have faith that they can cause an upset.
The Irish provinces go head to head at the RDS Arena on Saturday, a week after Leinster were crowned European champions by defeating Racing 92 in the Champions Cup final in Bilbao.
Van Graan’s side are yet to taste victory in the fixture this season, previously going down to a 23-17 defeat at the Aviva and a 34-24 reverse at Thomond Park.
While the South African is willing to accept that the odds will be stacked against his men, he remains confident that his side possess the mentality and ability required to book a place in the final against either Glasgow Warriors or Scarlets.
He said: “Obviously they’re the favourites playing at home and champions of Europe, but that’s the beauty of sport and the beauty of the human spirit, it’s a new game, new ball, new referee, new teams, and looking forward to it very much.
“I don’t need to convince our players [that they can win]. They believe it. This is a club that believes in themselves. We cannot control the opposition. In this case, it is Leinster and while we give them all the credit that is due, the players believe it themselves, and they said after the Racing game that they want to win a trophy.
“In order to do that, we need to get past opponents in the semi-final, it’s Leinster on Saturday afternoon. We believe we can do it, that is the only thing we can control.
He continued: “You can’t deny the fact that over the last nine years, they’ve won the Champions Cup the most but going back to the PRO14, one point separated the two sides throughout the whole season, we’ve played the same amount of games.
“My belief in rugby is that every week’s different. This is a whole new ball game.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here