Munster and Leinster to go into battle at full strength

A SLOW burner of a season goes up a few gears this week with the latest instalment in the Leinster-Munster rivalry. With Brian O’Driscoll’s return to arms having been confirmed yesterday, and Paul O’Connell set to follow when Munster announce their squad today, both coaches have pretty much a full hand to play with.

That’s just in the nick of time for Saturday’s RDS sell-out and, as far as Michael Cheika and Tony McGahan are concerned, not before time either.

As of Monday morning there would have been an extra frisson of anticipation in both camps for what Cheika yesterday described as “another match of monumental proportions for us in context of the rivalry, in the context of the league and in the lead up to the European Cup next week”.

Five years ago, almost to the week, Cheika had his first taste of the rivalry when Leinster travelled to Cork and were beaten by 33-9 and five tries to none.

“I still very vividly remember the first day I was part of a Munster-Leinster match, down in Musgrave Park where we took an absolute tonking. I got to learn pretty quickly what it’s all about.”

It is, he admitted, a unique rivalry. “The two matches, and hopefully three – because if you get a third every year it’s good – they’re the highlights of your season. For me, as a foreigner, who’s come here and grown to understand the rivalry, it’s a real classic. You don’t find this type of rivalry in many other places.”

Last season, Munster avenged Leinster’s league double of the previous season with a double of their own, only for Leinster to win the Heineken Cup semi-final in that world-record attendance for a “club” match at Croke Park.

Ably demonstrating his sharper understanding of the fixture after presiding over five wins and five losses, Cheika added: “What we have to do is break the tit-for-tat nature of this encounter. Y’know, we win, then they win, or they win two and we win two. If we want to be successful on Saturday, we need to break that cycle, because it always seems to be the team who’s mentally angrier, who wants to come back to win that match.

“We gotta break that cycle by being mentally angrier this weekend, even though we won that last time, because last time means nothing.”

O’Driscoll will become Leinster 30th player in just five games, having come through a full-contact session yesterday.

“He’s got enough experience now to play these games fresh from a long break,” said the Leinster coach.

“He will have some rustiness, so we don’t expect him to go out there and win the game on his own, but it will be very good for him to get his first start at a high level because it will get him up there pretty quickly.”

Cheika admitted that this season has been his toughest to date in terms of the restrictions on player availability, but that the positive feeling within the group has helped them to three wins from four to date. This, he said, was not merely the product of last season’s success, but has been building up over time.

“There’s a real strong dressing-room and that’s the objective. The dressingroom makes the coach obsolete. He doesn’t have to motivate, he doesn’t have to do anything, he just makes a few tactics.

“They’re motivating themselves and getting themselves up for games, and when they’re on the back foot they get themselves out of trouble. Like, they didn’t play well last weekend but somehow they managed to get themselves out of trouble.”

Chris Paterson’s missed injury-time penalty in Murrayfield amounted to a six-point swing, leaving Leinster just a point behind the early Scottish pacesetters rather than seven.

The European champions have scored only two tries to date, and none in their last two wins away to the Ospreys and Edinburgh; that statistic revived memories of a three-game tryless run last January for Cheika.

“But if you’ve got that experience behind you, you can say ‘just keep doing the right things and keep looking for the right changes and keep being positive’ and that breakthrough will come.”

At a push, Cheika reckons he could have included CJ van der Linde, who, like O’Driscoll, had his first full-contact session yesterday.

“But he’s been out for a while and he’s going to have to fight for his place too; the frontrows are going quite well.”

While it might not be ideal for van der Linde to return when Leinster begin the defence of their Heineken Cup crown against high-flying London Irish next Friday, the presence of a 23rd man on the bench in Europe gives them leeway.

As two of the ever-present starters so far have been Cian Healy and John Fogarty, and with Stanley Wright having packed down at tighthead in three of those four games, that would appear to be the frontrow for Saturday.

Cheika again spoke glowingly of Malcolm O’Kelly’s “pretty awesome performance against the Ospreys”, which may suggest he’ll return alongside Leo Cullen in the secondrow. Interestingly, Kevin McLoughlin has been one of the other ever-present starters, which suggests either Seán O’Brien or Shane Jennings may miss out.

With Eoin Reddan and Jonathan Sexton the likely half-backs, and O’Driscoll set to partner Gordon D’Arcy in the centre, the other conundrum for Cheika is who to choose from Isa Nacewa, Luke Fitzgerald, Rob Kearney, Shane Horgan and Girvan Dempsey in the back three.

And they all want to play in this one.