Benetton may be placed five rungs below Munster in the United Rugby Championship (URC) league table, but the 12th-placed Italians are not without the appetite to nibble points off any side that arrives over to Stadio Comunale di Monigo with notions.
Not that Munster do. Their challenge on Saturday (7.45pm) is to get a strong squad on the pitch, one that will be helped by the news that Oli Jaeger, Jean Kleyn, Calvin Nash, Diarmuid Barron and Brian Gleeson are all back training this week.
With no less than 14 Benetton players named in Italy’s initial Six Nations squad, there is a Benetton fear factor every team faces, with centre Tommaso Menoncello a standout among those that can cause the best teams in world rugby serious problems.
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“It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? Yeah, he’s full package,” agrees Munster and Ireland centre Tom Farrell. “We’ve seen it in the Six Nations there. Both attack and defence, he’s pretty well rounded. Obviously, unbelievably strong through contact.
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“He has that offloading game as well. We’ll have to be kind of defending in twos and threes around that and not leave him kind of soft shoulders to allow them off the channels. He’s quite dangerous, though.”
Farrell is not without his own international experience and over the last 12 months bridged the gap between club and international rugby when Andy Farrell handed him his first cap last November against Japan.
Farrell followed his debut up with his first Six Nations game in March when he came on against Wales in Dublin.
“Yeah, obviously, I was delighted to get my Six Nations debut. Probably a little bit frustrated with the lack of game time in it,” he says.
“But it was understandable. The team was starting to tick as the weeks went on and the combinations in the midfield and in the back line were starting to gel. So, it’s a hard argument when things are starting to come through. Overall, it was a positive experience. My first Six Nations full campaign. So, I’m looking at it positively.
“When I sat down after, I probably tried to tell myself that this time last year I wasn’t even in the picture. So, we’ll go with that.”
It is no surprise frustration bubbled up, with such an established suite of players who rotate in the Irish centre positions including Garry Ringrose, Bundee Aki, Robbie Henshaw and Stuart McCloskey, who was one of Ireland’s outstanding players over the five matches.
But it was a helpful experience for Farrell too, one that he hopes will benefit Munster in the final weeks of the league campaign. There are just four games remaining before the knockout stage.
Another stint with Ireland is a possibility with the Nations Championship beginning in July. For Farrell, though, it is not something at the forefront of his thinking.
“To be honest, no. It’s not even in my realm at the moment,” he says. “First and foremost, I have a massive job to do with Munster over the next four weeks. We talk to it as a group. We can’t even look that far ahead.
“Obviously, for the more, I suppose, mainstayers in the [Irish] team, they might have an eye on it. But for me, I need to focus on myself and Munster.”
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That said, Farrell was able to bring back some tools that will be useful in the coming weeks, not just in Italy on Saturday, where temperatures are expected to reach 23 degrees, but to the vital remaining games after that at home to Ulster, away to Connacht and at home to the Lions.
“I learned loads,” he says. “First of all, the eye-opening level of intensity, the detail, the speed of things. It’s just that step-up again. That’s on skill level, standards, fitness levels, everything.
“So, the demands that’s required for that level. And then, off the back of it, picking the brains of lads who have been there more frequently than me.”
That may come in handy for Munster, who have little room for error over the next four weeks.
