{"id":354900,"date":"2026-02-25T03:49:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T03:49:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/354900\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T03:49:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T03:49:14","slug":"munsters-six-nations-players-praised-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/354900\/","title":{"rendered":"Munster\u2019s Six Nations players praised \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Munster<\/a> forwards coach Alex Codling is not the least surprised that loosehead props Jeremy Loughman and Michael Milne have made the most of their Six Nations<\/a> chance with Ireland<\/a> or that Edwin Edogbo<\/a> also looked right at home in his cameo against Italy.<\/p>\n

Edogbo and Milne are back with Munster this week as they prepare to face Zebre at Thomond Park on Saturday in the United Rugby Championship (URC), but Loughman, who has started all three Six Nations games<\/a>, remains with Andy Farrell\u2019s squad.<\/p>\n

Nevada native Loughman (30) won the first of his five Irish caps against Fiji in November 2022, but had not featured internationally since coming off the bench against Italy in the Six Nations two years ago.<\/p>\n

\"\"Ireland pull off one of the great Twickenham days against England<\/p>\n

Milne celebrated his 27th birthday by coming off the bench against France<\/a> for his third cap, while Edogbo made his debut against Italy. <\/p>\n

Codling is expecting a boost from them as they return to Munster duty.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think like everything, when they come back in, they\u2019ll obviously come back with a bounce in their step. They\u2019ll come back with different ideas and I think ultimately when you go into those environments, they\u2019ll see the standards and I think it\u2019s about bringing those and driving the standards here as well. I think that\u2019s massive around the environment,\u201d the former England international said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was really impressed. I think if you go back to the French game and the way Michael Milne came on, [and] made a big impact, I think. We know the qualities they have and you only really find out in some senses about yourself and where you can go as an individual player in terms of those international environments.<\/p>\n

\"AlexAlex Codling, who was in squad training on Monday, is also looking forward to hooker Marnus van der Merwe’s arrival from Scarlets in summer. Photograph: Morgan Treacy\/INPHO <\/p>\n

\u201cSo we\u2019re delighted for him, and Jeremy\u2019s done a great job the last few weeks. I think there were some clips around some of the tries run and he does a lot of unseen work. I think the ability just to win races, win corners at the breakdown and give space to other players.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we\u2019re delighted for both of them, as we were with Edwin. I think just seeing the guys put the green jersey on, it\u2019s what we want as coaches and what we want as a club. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd again, if you look at the eight academy players from Munster during the under-20s, I thought they were fantastic as well on Friday night<\/a> [in the win against the England under-20s].\u201d<\/p>\n

Munster are unlikely to call on any of those under-20s for the game against Zebre, including outhalf Tom Wood who made his debut last time out against Glasgow Warriors, but JJ Hanrahan is fit again and returns from injury to the squad along with the likes of Jean Kleyn, Alex Kendellen and Calvin Nash.<\/p>\n

\"MarkMark Donnelly shares a joke with Edwin Edogbo. Photograph: Morgan Treacy\/INPHO <\/p>\n

Lock Tom Ahern might also make it, having upped his training load this week as Munster, who head to South Africa to take on the Sharks and the Bulls next month, seek a badly needed win after losing five of their last six matches.<\/p>\n

Their recruitment drive for next season is continuing with Irish-qualified scrumhalf Ben O\u2019Donovan joining immediately on an 18-month loan deal from Canterbury, having featured for New Zealand at under-20 level.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just rejuvenated props that Codling is looking forward to working with but also Springbok hooker Marnus van der Merwe<\/a>, who will arrive in the summer from Scarlets, a year after the 29-year-old made his South African debut against Georgia.<\/p>\n

\u201cMarnus is a quality operator around the setpiece. He\u2019s been involved with the Springboks and he\u2019s going to be a really positive addition,\u201d Codling said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI also want to make note of the group we\u2019ve got here already. We\u2019re very lucky, we\u2019ve got some outstanding hookers. They\u2019ve done a great job. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut rugby is very fluid so we\u2019re looking forward to the rest of the season and then obviously Marnus will come in July.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Munster forwards coach Alex Codling is not the least surprised that loosehead props Jeremy Loughman and Michael Milne…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":354901,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[41],"tags":[70904,9,10,157850,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,12311,5,2525,96426,7,8,42271,65,66,67],"class_list":["post-354900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","tag-andy-farrell","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-edwin-edogbo","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-munster-rugby","tag-news","tag-rugby","tag-six-nations","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-united-rugby-championship","tag-world","tag-world-news","tag-worldnews"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116129232596800474","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=354900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}