MUNSTER COACH ANTHONY Foley has backed Ian Keatley to shine as his first-choice goal kicker.
Keatley had a miserable start to the Pro12 season when he missed two conversions against Edinburgh as well as a late penalty to win the game.
The disappointed out-half held his hands up afterwards and apologised to his team-mates for the defeat.
But he bounced back with 11 points in Friday’s win against Treviso, and Foley has no doubt that he’s the best man for the job.
Foley said: “He kicked very well for us last year. Unfortunately he had a dip in the Edinburgh game. He apologised in the changing room afterwards which there was no need to do.
“He’s got to step up there because he’s the best man we have to kick. Other fellas wouldn’t do as good a job as him.
He obviously took that on board. We said that we have full faith in him. He did what he did [in Italy] for us and got a result.
He added: “In the competitive world that we live in, every opportunity to take a point or not give a point away is so important.
“It’s such a tight margin out there with all these teams so when you can get a bit of distance between them, you’ve got to take it. That’s something that we missed obviously against Edinburgh but we got back again against Treviso.”
Despite a late passport scare, back-row Robin Copeland made his competitive debut for the province in the 21-10 win in the Stadio Monigo.
Foley said: “We’d still like to see the ball in his hands a bit more and him doing a bit more damage like he’d have done against us for Cardiff. We’ll see that as he beds in.
“There’s a lot of stuff for him to get his head around here and he’s managing that well.”
– Audio courtesy of Limerick’s Live 95FM
