Heaslip eager for the action to begin

RUGBY:Johnny Watterson talks to Leinster's Jamie Heaslipahead of the high-intensity match against Munster

Rested last week, Jamie Heaslip will go into Friday's match against Munster eager to impress but decidedly not thinking that he needs do a great deal more than what he has been doing all season. Yeah, you think. What about Denis Leamy? Getting sucked into the sloppy discipline that has occasionally made Leinster struggle in matches because of over eagerness is not what the Leinster number eight sees as the way to beat Munster. Heaslip is . . . how would you say it? A little chilled.

A win last week against the Ospreys to the backdrop of a mixed bag from Leinster could be interpreted in two ways. It is Leinster being typically roller-coaster Leinster and doing it the harder way or Leinster finally winning games they should be winning, even with a few blind spots.

Whatever way it is viewed, Munster will be an interesting pre-Christmas benchmark, for Heaslip, for coach Michael Cheika. Munster will be favourites. They have home advantage.

They have a better record of winning the tight matches. They have the hardness and durability that Leinster so desire, yet there is a chance that the running play of the Dublin side could prevail, if . . . if. The hardened gambler would never bet against an Anthony Foley and Ronan O'Gara led Munster side but righting off Leinster as much as undermining Munster could be perilous.

Heaslip has been a standout for Leinster this season chilled or unchilled and no doubt Cheika has had an eye on the Munster backrow and pack, and with regard to the resting of the regularly played Heaslip, kept his powder dry for this match. Players don't always see it the way coaches do.

"Being rested?," he says. "I don't really like missing games at all. Last year they wanted to rest me before Christmas and I didn't really like it. But the guys did the job at the weekend and I suppose it gave me time to let the hair down a bit, catch up."

The inescapable fact is that Heaslip will be facing Ireland's World Cup number eight. Leamy didn't have a good tournament in France but few are blind to his ability, or, his effectiveness in a match.

With the Six Nations just two months away, Heaslip would be foolish or too modest if he were to think that Eddie O'Sullivan will not be watching. It is the player's job to down play personal battles, but this meeting may be pivotal for both.

"I'm up against Leamy," Heaslip says matter of fact.

"He's a quality player and has proved himself numerous times. It will be a challenge for me but I don't think it is fair to judge anyone on just one game on one weekend.

"Their backrow has played different combinations with each other, have won a Heineken Cup with it. We may not have played with each other as much but our combinations have worked out. We can step up to the mark and match them, win the little battles against opposite numbers, things like that."

For Leinster and Heaslip, Cheika's criticism of the scrum this week will have hurt. A few weeks ago against Gloucester in the RDS, it was as if the team had been granted an epiphany in the changing-room and put in a huge bodies-on-the-line defensive performance. Last week that composure and street-wise attitude evaporated.

"It was a bit messy," he admits. "The scrum was not as tidy as it has been. But our scrum has taken a leap forward. I wouldn't say that last week was a step back but it, well, shrunk a bit. We've spoken about it during the week and hope and expect that it will go back to where it was."

The issue of away matches has also been a bugbear for Leinster. Had they won a decent amount of home games last season and the season before, they could have reasonably have expected to have won the league title. "The away games we shot ourselves in the foot," he says.

"Maybe now it is about being more street wise or having more belief. It is hard to answer as a player as to why. You do everything you can to win. Sometimes it comes off and sometimes it doesn't. And often it's not that other teams are better but it is down to us."

For now at least, the collective in Limerick, Cork and Dublin will see this as a useful meeting before the European Cup kicks back in again. The intensity will surely mirror the superior competition and add some value to the teams as they both try to qualify for the knock out stages. Good can be taken from the meeting win or lose.

"The crowd. That hyped-up atmosphere when we go to play in their back garden," says Heaslip. "It's what you want going into two rounds of a Heineken Cup. This is a good week to have the game," he adds, rested and still without his game face. But it will come.