Munster confident Thomond Park will be ready for Racing visit
Munster will welcome the French powerhouse and current Pool 4 leaders to Limerick for a second-round encounter that despite the worst weather event to hit Ireland in more than half a century was declared good to go by stadium director John Cantwell yesterday.
“It was battering down but we took a lot of precautions on Sunday with next weekend in mind.
“Took down goalposts, signage, tents, everything that could get blown away,” Cantwell told the Irish Examiner.
“We haven’t had anything like this before but in previous storms we’ve had advertising signage ripped off so we were just trying to minimise any damage and we’re okay.”
Nor does Cantwell have any concerns about the Thomond Park playing surface, providing similar levels of rainfall are not experienced between today and Saturday’s 5:30pm kick-off.
“Our plan is in place for this type of weather. We have a very good drainage system here for the main pitch so once all the rain over the next 24 hours has passed we can handle it for Saturday.
“Getting it over a number of days would be the problem but if it’s contained to a 24-hour period we’re okay.
“Thomond Park is exposed too, so the pitch gets dried out with the wind as well and we don’t see any issues at the moment, unless this type of weather falls on match day. We’re fortunate that it’s come on a Monday rather than next Saturday.”
