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Irish Mirror
Irish Mirror
Sport
Michael Scully

Stephen Larkham hits back at Munster's critics

Stephen Larkham has hit back at Munster's critics as he insisted the Reds are playing a "balanced" game.

The province have won all three of their Champions Cup pool games to date and, following the dramatic last-gasp victory at Castres last Friday night, have qualified for the knock-out stages ahead of Sunday's final pool match at home to Wasps.

However the style of play has not convinced many, including former Reds great Donal Lenihan, who claims that Munster don't have enough strings to their bow in attack to break the chain of defeats in the knock-out stages in Europe.

But senior coach Larkham, who is departing for the Brumbies in the summer, was defiant when that criticism was put to him at the province's press conference today.

"You've got to be realistic when you look at our game," said Larkham, who claimed general criticism of the Reds' performances is "misinformed".

He added: "We are not the team that kicks the most in our games. I know we have been criticised for kicking too much in the past but the stats just don't add up.

"We feel that we've got a very balanced game and a game that we want to play.

"We feel that when there is an opportunity on the table that we take that opportunity.

"I think we've got a sound game and we are improving.

"I feel we're improving. We're looking to improve every week and some weeks the game doesn't come together with the conditions, the referee and the circumstances. We certainly have enough variety in our game."

Larkham added: "There are positive and negative comments - there are parts of those games we're happy with.

"If you look at our previous four games some passages haven't been great, we put our hand up and said we need to be better.

"In others the referees have made some questionable decisions that have made it very difficult to get a roll on. And then recently we've had a couple of really good passages in a couple of really good performances.

"Maybe the score didn't reflect how well we've played in the last couple of games."

Larkham added that Simon Zebo, who missed last week's Castres clash, is fit and available for the Wasps encounter at Thomond Park.

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