Munster will name their team later today to face Castres in the Heineken Cup semi-final tomorrow afternoon.
Just one win away from their second final appearance in three years, Declan Kidney’s squad arrived in Montpellier yesterday and have trained in the hot conditions they can expect in nearby Beziers.
Peter Clohessy and Paul O’Connell, injury worries all week, are expected to be named in the starting XV.
But Kidney has stressed in the run-up to this game that the heat, predicted to be in the mid-20s by tomorrow afternoon’s kick-off, would make it a 22-man game from Munster’s perspective.
Clohessy, who will retire at the end of the current campaign, suffered second-degree burns in a domestic garden fire just a fortnight ago, but will wear a protective covering on his arm.
Munster are no strangers to winning on French soil, having reached the last four courtesy of a superb 16-14 success against the strongly-fancied Stade Francais club.
But Munster coach Declan Kidney, who leaves his post at the end of this season to focus on his role as Ireland’s assistant coach, knows history is against his players.
"History shows that nine of the 12 Heineken Cup semi-finals since the competition began have been won by the home side," he said. "That shows how difficult it is going to be for us. Castres are a very strong, physical team with no small amount of ability.
"We have done well in France in the past, but when we beat Toulouse in Bordeaux in the semi-final two years ago, there was a real element of surprise. There was a little bit of that still there last year, when we almost beat Stade Francais in Lille, but there will be no surprise element in this game".
The game is a 20,400 sell-out, with the winners having to wait 24 hours before discovering their final opponents on May 25th as Leicester or Llanelli meet at Nottingham Forest's City Ground on Sunday.