Rugby European Cup: The rain and the hailstones came down almost vertically on the back pitch at Thomond Park yesterday morning. One of those days when "Munster heart" was required, as Alan Gaffney put it. "You've just got to fight through it." A bit like the sudden renewal of their Heineken European Cup campaign really.

Much like their Celtic League programme, the quality of yesterday's session at their Limerick citadel was of limited quality as Munster attempted to crank up their preparations for next Saturday's quarter-final at home to Stade Francais. But at least they were back in harness.

And after a trying couple of months without their test players, one imagines the return of these front-line players has - amid the hailstones and lashing rain - been like a breath of fresh air.

"It's going to be great," commented a discernibly reinvigorated Gaffney yesterday. "I'm very much looking forward to the game and having the boys back. There's been a great buzz over the last two weeks, even though five of them didn't play last weekend. They add a lot of spice, great craic, it's fun. They know what they've got to do, they've got the hard yards to do at training, but they also know they can have a bit of fun at the same time."

The absence, largely precautionary, of their halfbacks and front row from last Friday's Celtic League defeat to the Celtic Warriors rather undermined the usefulness of that run-out as a preparatory exercise for this coming game against the French champions.

Ideally, Gaffney accepts Munster would be in altogether better nick had they two full games under their belts. "That said, they've been around a long time, a lot longer than me," he said. "They know we've changed a few little things over the last while but they'll fit into the patterns and structures very quickly."

Furthermore, the Munster coach takes solace in the knowledge that Stade are "in the same boat as us", after the Six Nations demands placed on their star-laden squad, and this season's largely remodelled first-team panel wouldn't have anything like the established playing patterns of this Munster team.

Admittedly, Diego Dominguez was the only player ruled out of their 24-20 win over Pau last Friday night but, as Gaffney concedes in advance, "we'll have no excuses as far as preparation is concerned. It could have been better, but there's no excuses."

Gaffney highlighted the contrasting styles of Stade's pool victories over Ulster and Leicester, when they destroyed one of the most renowned mauls in the club game throughout the world, in the last two weekends in January as evidence of how they tailor their game to suit the opposition.

"They play the team. Nick Mallett obviously does a lot of homework on the sides they play against and they've probably identified areas where they are going to attack us. But conversely we've identified a lot of areas where we feel we can attack them."

Like the other absentees from last Friday's game, Ronan O'Gara has assuaged all doubts about his injured ankle by taking a full part in training on Monday and yesterday. "Ronan did full contact yesterday (Monday) when they knocked the absolute shit out of each other. I was surprised he did," laughed Gaffney.

Gaffney will confirm his line-up on Friday, and once more the closest call would seem to be at inside centre, between Rob Henderson and Jason Holland, basically a choice between "the man with the power" and "the man with the finesse", as well as picking two from John Kelly, Anthony Horgan and Mossie Lawlor on the wings.

Jeremy Staunton had his first comeback game since a groin operation for Garryowen at the weekend but, like Alan Quinlan and Mike Prendergast (who are set to be back in the frame for the Celtic League game against Edinburgh on April 17th), is not in consideration this week, so the team would appear to largely pick itself.

Hence, this quarter-final will mark the first time Christian Cullen will line out alongside the first-choice, largely full-strength, Munster XV, and here we are in April. Well, better late than never, though the record All Blacks try scorer hasn't made quite the anticipated impact after an injury-delayed start to his season, as evidenced by Cullen's belated first try for his new team, which he scored last weekend.

"He's very much looking forward to it," says Gaffney. "I think Christian started to get back into it last week, when we started to see a bit of what we expected from Christian Cullen. He started to hit a few lines, started runnng at shoulders. The line he took for the Mikey Mullins try may have looked simple on TV, but it wasn't quite as simple as it looked.

"Things are going to happen with Christian," adds Gaffney, who stressed the greater understanding Cullen had built up with Wellington and All Blacks team-mates over eight years before coming here. "You get used to each other. He does things which probably no other player in the world would even know about.

"He runs lines which we're not taking full advantage of at the present time. He runs into holes that we don't react to at the present time, and that's not a slur on our players, we've just got to get used to looking for him.

"It's time, it's time, and the longer Christian is with our players the better it will be. He'll react to us, and we'll react more to him. We've got the skilful players to do it," says the Munster coach, who is in absolutely no doubt that in Cullen he has signed a player who is still truly world class. "I've got no doubt about that at all."

MUNSTER (probable): C Cullen; J Kelly, M Mullins, R Henderson, A Horgan; R O'Gara, P Stringer; M Horan, F Sheahan, J Hayes, D O'Callaghan, P O'Connell, J Williams (capt), A Foley, D Wallace.