Munster Rugby's Diarmuid Barron says squad is 're-energised' after South African win

MUNSTER Rugby hooker Diarmuid Barron says the squad has been 're-energised' by their impressive victory over a South Africa Select XV at Páirc Uí Chaoimh ahead of this Saturday's crucial URC interprovincial derby meeting with Connacht at Thomond Park, 7.35pm, live TG4 and Premier Sports.

Twenty four-year-old Barron scored one of Munster's four tries in their thrilling 28-14 victory over the South Africans at Cork GAA headquarters earlier this month.

Munster switch their focus back to the URC this weekend as Connacht come to Limerick hoping to complete a league double over their hosts this season following their earlier win in Galway.

Munster have won just two of their seven URC fixtures this season and have lost all three of their interprovincial fixtures to date this season. 

Hooker Barron, who has now made 40 appearances for Munster, said: "We have a huge challenge and we are not shying away from that. But all we can do is look after ourselves and keep growing on our performances, take momentum from I suppose a couple of good performances recently and try and do the best we can and then look to build that momentum even more so.

“You can see it week by week, it’s coming together more and more and it’s just important we keep building on that momentum more and more, keep pushing ourselves to keep learning every week.

“We can take a lot from the South Africa game. We can take confidence first of all, in what we’re doing and trying to accomplish. And then we can take solace in the fact we went toe to toe with a big pack, and physically did very well. There’s a lot of work-ons too, and it was far from perfect, but it was a class night, there’s no hiding away from how good it was.

“It’s exciting going into the next block, the lads have used the term ‘re-energised’, and I think a lot of lads would be re-energised from that, and it’s very exciting.”