Agree with all of this. Healy was excellent for the 20s, just unlucky to be from this age group but played a big role and did really well. I think he's the kind of mentally tough and solid player that would actually do a really good job if he was thrown in on Sunday. Or at least I think he would if they weren't playing Racing in their astro cinema where the game is likely to be 100mph and even the supposedly world class scrumhalf beside him is likely to struggle. I'm not being funny but it's the kind of game where you'd want someone like POM to be watching his channel like a hawk, whereas the reality is that POM's form means that he's probably the one likely to need his arse covered.OTT wrote:As you say it would be a bit mad to throw in Healy for this game after seemingly making him the scapegoat (the management anyway) for the loss at home to Edinburgh, he has not been seen since it. I think the problem is that at this stage he should have been involved a lot more. You touched on it before about Munsters use of a 6-2 split on the bench and when you look at some of the games they felt the need to do it in. Dragons in Thomond, Kings away, Ulster in Thomond, what were they scared of here? They were three games that were made for exposing another young back. Then there were other games like the mighty Ospreys where they had a 5-3 split and chose to pick the tried and trusted over giving game time to a talent like Healy.
He might not have been the standout talent for the U20's they were a cracking squad but he was definitely one I remember for his unbelievable kicking game for someone of that age. Another guy who probably only got game time at 10 because of Harry Byrne being injured was Jake Flannery but he reminded me of Joey Carbery when he came through, very loose but full of natural ability I would have thought a coach like Larkham would be pushing to get a player like that involved somewhere in the backline but as it stands Healy has one appearance and Flannery zero. Like they are where they are now with Blyendaal, Joey and potentially JJ out but it is still the same shite they are selling this season as all the others.
It's truly astonishing that they rushed JJ back instead of backing Healy, and now they might be without the former and haven't done anything to prepare the latter.
Halfback really could be a huge problem for them on Sunday. Murray has managed to get back to decent form IMO, but that's decent in the sense that his passing is okay and his box kicking has been good. He's still not breaking or running the game like he did 18 months ago, and on that pitch and with a centre/rookie outhalf and a weak pack it could end up being a nightmare. No Tadhg Beirne to try and disrupt Racing over the ball, I think they'll have a field day tbh.
