Rugby:After a week spent assessing their walking wounded, there was mixed news for Michael Cheika and Tony McGahan this morning. The Leinster coach has been able to name Gordon D'Arcy and Nathan Hines in his starting line-up while McGahan must contend without both Keith Earls and Paul O'Connell.
O’Connell had been expected to miss out with a groin strain and the Munster captain is joined on the sidelines by Earls, the wing picking up the same injury during training this week. For Leinster, it had been thought that D’Arcy and Hines would struggle to be involved, but both will start at Thomond Park.
While the importance of tomorrow’s fixture cannot be understated, not least amongst the opposing sets of fans, the fact that the Heineken Cup resumes next Friday perhaps coloured both coaches thinking when selecting their sides.
Cheika clearly feels that D’Arcy and Hines will benefit from a competitive, to say the least, run out before facing Clermont Auverge while McGahan sees no merit in risking either O’Connell or Earls ahead of renewing hostilities with Northampton.
Naming today’s side, Munster team manager Shaun Payne was keen to stress neither player has been ruled out of the European quarter-finals at this stage.
Elsewhere, Cian Healy must settle for a place on the Leinster bench while Devon Toner starts alongside Leo Cullen in the second row. Fergus McFadden continues to deputise for the injured Brian O’Driscoll and Girvan Dempsey is again named on the right wing.
McGahan will throw Jerry Flannery straight back into the fray after the Ireland hooker completed his six-week ban picked up during the Six Nations.
One of a many fascinating sub-plots tomorrow night will see Ronan O’Gara once again go head-to-head with Jonathan Sexton after their reversal of fortunes during Ireland’s flawed Six Nations campaign.
O’Gara, usurped initially by the young pretender in the championship, finished the championship the stronger of the two as Sexton’s place-kicking left plenty to be desired. And while Sexton was disappointed with the way things panned out, being hauled off as things went awry against Scotland, he revealed O’Gara had offered some friendly advice afterwards.
“He just said when you are an out-half and there are two out-halves going for the same position and things are not going well for the team, the first person that is going to get pulled is probably going to be the out-half,” Sexton said.
“He has obviously had that done a few times in his career when himself and (David) Humphreys were battling it out,” he added “I totally understood the decision (against Scotland). I was obviously disappointed but I did understand why they were trying to change things up.”
Munser v Leinster, Thomond Park, Kick-off 8.05pm
Munster:P Warwick; D Howlett, L Mafi, J de Villiers, I Dowling; R O'Gara capt, T O'Leary; M Horan, J Flannery, J Hayes; D O'Callaghan, M O'Driscoll; A Quinlan, N Ronan, D Wallace. Replacements:D Fogarty, T Buckley, N Williams, J Coughlan, P Stringer, T Gleeson, S Deasy.
Leinster:R Kearney; G Dempsey, F McFadden, G D'Arcy, I Nacewa; J Sexton, E Reddan; S Wright, J Fogarty, CJ van der Linde; L Cullen, D Toner; N Hines, S Jennings, J Heaslip. Replacements:B Jackman, C Healy, M O'Kelly, S Keogh, P O'Donohoe, S Berne, E O'Malley.
Referee:Romaine Poite (FFR)