Fieldwise Munster can take their chance

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Indeed, at Thomond Park, Munster's discipline and unrelenting 80-minute efforts have been as good as ever.

Although Stade have quite a cutting edge, it will be to the exceptional French Grand Slam props and co up front that Stade will look to draw lines in the sand.

The Munster front row having been rested en bloc last week, the likes of Marcus Horan, Frankie Sheahan and Donncha O'Callaghan should be itching for a game like this.

After five Celtic League outings in more prosaic settings, today could be the stage for Christian Cullen as well, although a little surprisingly, Alan Gaffney has opted on the wing for the superior work-rate of Shaun Payne over the sharper finishing of Anthony Horgan - from the start at any rate.

"It was a tough call but we just feel that Shaun deserves his chance as he has been in slightly better form than Hoggy," explains the Munster coach, who is expecting "a tough slog".

It will be a long way removed from the back-to-back Super 12 matches on Sky yesterday, which yielded 21 tries, and it'll be all the better for that.

It's a knock-out quarter-final after all, with two seasons and two obsessions on the line. And somehow, at Thomond Park, raw-boned affairs remain the norm.

Quarter-finals have ceased to become routine home wins in the last couple of years, and the tension generated by the sudden advent of knock-out rugby invariably tightens up games.

"Mistakes can jeopardise what's been done over the previous six months," admits Gaffney, "but our job is to get them out of that mindset, to just try and focus on playing the game - playing what's in front of them."

They have the wit to do that, and, for once, have surely been given every incentive by the draw. Munster are seeking a fifth consecutive semi-final, and this time - rather than the annual semi-final odyssey to France - the carrot is a semi-final in, of all places, Lansdowne Road.

It's there for them.