Cork Constitution

A muscle tear in his calf means Anthony Horgan "has to have no chance of playing really" against Young Munster, admits team manager Pat O'Keefe. John Kelly, however, has recovered from his troublesome hamstring strain.

Constitution's abiding concern will concern their influential number eight, Ultan O'Callaghan, whose hand injury has sidelined him for their last four games and again makes him "very doubtful". They hope to announce their line-up tomorrow, which strongly suggests O'Callaghan won't make it.

Either way, the composition of the back five in the pack will be Brian Hickey's prime selectorial headache: he could recall Donnacha O'Callaghan to number eight, or bring in John Fogarty in a reshuffled back row alongside Craig Taylor and Jerry Murray. Ronan O'Donovan is slightly favoured to gain the nod over Cian Mahony as midfield partner to Conor Mahony. Ronan O'Gara will play, though he is already ruled out of the final, as the Lions get together on Saturday week. O'Keefe, too, in his capacity as Lions kit manager, would miss the final. "It would mean me missing my first game since 1992, but that's next week. Let's not tempt fate."

CORK CONSTITUTION (possible): B Walsh; J Kelly, Conor Mahony, R O'Donovan, D Dillon; R O'Gara, B O'Meara; I Murray, F Sheahan, J O'Driscoll, K Murphy, M O'Driscoll, C Taylor, D O'Callaghan, J Murray.

Young Munster

Given a full-strength squad, save for Colm Power, Munsters are likely to announce an unchanged side today or tomorrow before travelling to Cork on Friday. Initial signs are that they will be accompanied by 4,000 supporters, bringing Temple Hill close to its 9,000 capacity.

"There'll be no helicopters though," added co-coach John Moloney, in reference to the 1986 Munster League decider against Constitution in Musgrave Park, when a small group of Munsters' wealthier supporters had planned to fly from Limerick on the morning of the match and land on the pitch.

"But they were fogbound in Shannon airport and never made it," recalls Moloney. "Cork Con absolutely hockeyed us that day, and at one point in the second-half Mick Bradley came over to the sideline and said: `Where's the helicopter boys?' So there'll be no tempting fate with helicopters again."

YOUNG MUNSTER (probable): M Connolly; F Hogan, M Mullins, L Doyle, C Casey; M Lynch, M Prendergast; P Clohessy, B Cantrell, M Fitzgerald, D Peters, P O'Connell, M Te Pou, M Ngarimu, K Gallagher.

Galwegian

John Kingston would have liked to break with the habit of a season and reveal his hand earlier in the week, but number eight Michael Swift was carried off last Saturday with a leg injury and probably won't train this week. "Knowing him as I do I'll be surprised if he's not fit for rugby come Saturday," says Kingston.

Hence their only absentee would again be frustrated openside Johnny O'Connor, who had the case removed from his broken forearm several weeks ago but the X-rays are not as clear as the specialists would like. "He's getting better every week but it would be ludicrous to risk him, for his sake rather than the club's. So we're going to rule him out for the rest of the season," admits the coach.

In which case Kingston's prime concern this week will be whether Willie Ruane has recovered from the bruised ribs which have ruled him out of Galwegians' last two games, and then whether to accommodate Ruane by moving Gavin Duffy. Otherwise the team would seem to pick itself.

GALWEGIANS (probable): G Duffy/W Ruane; G Brady/G Duffy, P Duignan, T Allnutt, D Rumney; E Elwood, B Shelbourne; D McFarland, P Clery, P Bracken, D Browne, M McConnell, B Gavin, M Swift, J Barfoot.

Dungannon

A clean bill of health means Willie Anderson will pick from an unchanged squad, though "there may be a couple of variations in the team". Given the rotating policy at prop and flanker, most likely this will mean a return to the starting line-up which inspired Dungannon's "best 30 minutes of the season" in their penultimate qualifying match at home to Ballymena.

DUNGANNON (probable): B Cunningham; J Cunningham, R Constable, J Bell, T Howe; D Humphreys, S Bell; J Fitzpatrick, N Brady, G Leslie, P Johns, A Kearney, A Boyd, T McWhirter, A Hughes.