McGahan and O'Connell in upbeat mood

IT HAS been a season of arrivals and departures at Munster but there was a familiar feel to Thomond Park yesterday as Tony McGahan and his men prepared for a Heineken Cup quarter-final against Ulster.

A year ago Munster’s failure to reach the knockout stages for the first time in 13 seasons saw them head to France for a debut game in the Amlin Challenge Cup against Brive. McGahan told a packed press conference at Thomond Park yesterday that, this week last year, there was only one photographer and a couple of reporters present ahead of their trip to Brive.

“From our perspective we had a real enlightening experience last year missing out. We understand the importance of it and we certainly don’t take it for granted, and we never did. But I think last year’s events have given us a real appreciation of how important and how difficult it is to get back to this stage each year.

“That’s what we talked about, we have got a real bounce from the guys with the experience but we also have a couple of guys who have never been here before.

“A lot of guys have not had a lot of Heineken Cup experience let alone finals’ experience. So it is up to the management and the senior players to bring that player up and make them fully aware of the opportunity, of what’s in front of them, and the fight that is going to be here on Sunday afternoon against a pretty experienced Ulster side, who have probably got more finals’ experience than a lot of our guys, one for one,” said McGahan.

The good news was posted early. Munster received a significant boost with five key players, including captain Paul O’Connell, included in the squad for Sunday’s game after recovering from injury. David Wallace, Conor Murray, Denis Hurley and Donnacha Ryan also return to the squad following injury, although McGahan said he will wait until later in the week before making a final call on their fitness.

But he said their availability would be a big boost ahead of Sunday’s game at Thomond Park. McGahan said he was not concerned about the injured players being out of action for the past few weeks and that the work done throughout the season will stand to them.

“I think they’ll be fine and I think we have experience. I think Paul was out for 10 months or so before he came back and managed to get himself through 80 minutes in an ERC game a few years ago.

“Those guys have got a lot of work done all over the season . . . they started training for the World Cup, they have been on the go for a long period of time. If anything it will have freshened those three guys up.”

O’Connell has not played since suffering a knee injury against France in the Six Nations but said yesterday he is raring to go.

“ I’m in good shape. I’ve done a full training and feel fine so if there are no problems I should be available for Sunday.

“Ideally I would like to have played more games in the last few weeks but there’s no point complaining about something that can’t happen. I’d had a good run of games up to that from the middle of the summer. I have a good fitness base so I wouldn’t be overly worried about it.

“When . . . you have an injury when you can’t train and have to stay off the feet for a few weeks, it refreshes the body and I do feel good,” said O’Connell.

The captain, who was sin-binned by referee Romain Poite when Munster played Northampton in the Heineken Cup last year, said he had no issues with the French official who will be in charge on Sunday.

“He’s refereed us and me plenty of times with Ireland and plenty of times with Munster since, and he’s an excellent referee. We wouldn’t have any problems with him at all. He’s one of the top referees in the world at the moment,” added O’Connell.

MUNSTER SQUAD: J Murphy, I Keatley, T O'Leary, F Jones, D Hurley, K Earls, L Mafi, S Zebo, R O'Gara, C Murray, D Barnes, D Williams, S Deasy, D Wallace, D O'Callaghan, S Archer, M Horan, D Varley, J Coughlan, T O'Donnell, P O'Mahony, P O'Connell, D Ryan, BJ Botha, M Sherry, W Du Preez, M O'Driscoll, B Holland, J Ryan, D Fogarty.