MUNSTER ARE in familiar terrain; their backs against the wall and blindfolded as the firing squad take aim, and requiring a Houdini-like bout of escapology. Depending on which player you listen to it’s either gut-wrenching or exciting, but either way, all are agreed the two-time Heineken Cup winners are going to have to scale heights this Sunday in Toulon which they’ve yet to scale this season.

Whereas Donncha O’Callaghan admitted he wouldn’t enjoy the week, Denis Leamy described it as exciting and season-defining, and maintained he would “try to enjoy it as best I can. You turn on radios and TV and in the papers and it can be full of the game. When you’re concentrating so hard and you come into the gym and you’re looking at videos, you’re mulling it in your head the whole time, walking down the street or whatever. So it can be difficult to get away from but I try to do it as best I can, just take a step back and relax a little bit.

“We’ll enjoy the game when we’re playing at an intensity that we want, when we’re dictating what’s happening and dictating what way the game is going, the pace of the game.

“That’s how we’ll enjoy it and then when you come off after a big victory in France or anywhere away from home, it’s an incredible feeling among your team-mates to have achieved that together.”

Johne Murphy spoke of the comparisons in the more intensified training sessions at both Leicester and Munster in weeks of this nature, a view that was echoed by Leamy.

“It’s been up, definitely. It was very good out there today. I thought fellas went about their business very well, lads knew their roles.

“We met up yesterday in Mallow and just did a bit of a walk through to learn our moves and different phase plays we want to do and I think fellas went about things very well today. There was a bit of a 15-minute match and there was good intensity, good hits going in and good ball carries, the mauls and that. I thought we went about our business in training today very well. Our intensity was up and you could see that.”

It’s abundantly clear the Munster scrum will be targeted this Sunday, and in stark contrast to last season’s semi-final against Biarritz and their most recent Euro outing away to the Ospreys, will have to dig its heels in. But Leamy said they could not afford to concentrate too heavily on one aspect of their game.

“It’s certainly one thing we worked on today but we worked on our mauling, our rucking our tackling, all the aspects that are going to be needed on Saturday. So you just can’t concentrate on something else because you’ll get caught out in another area against a side like Toulon or any quality side.”

Expecting a completely different prospect from their previous meeting in Thomond Park, Leamy also spoke of the intensity they can expect from Toulon, with his counterpart, the warrior Puma Juan Fernandez-Lobbe, their leader from the front.

“I’ve played against him a few times and he’s a very good player, a very passionate player. He gets involved and he’s a guy I’d have a lot of admiration for. It’s a test, definitely, and we’ll be tested against our opposite numbers from one to 15. But these are the big games you want to be involved in. This is the stage you want to be playing on and it’s one to look forward to and embrace.”

Leamy also echoed the view of his coach, Tony McGahan, that Sunday demands Munster’s most complete performance of the season so far. “I think so. We haven’t won in the Heineken Cup away from home now for the last three or four times we’ve been on the road, I would imagine, and we really need to get over that barrier.

“We got ourselves in some good positions against the Ospreys, against London Irish, where we could have taken the game. Against the Ospreys we got ourselves in an area where we could have scored a try and kicked on from there but we didn’t, unfortunately.

“So I think this really has been thrown down to us as our season,” said Leamy. “We need to get four points at least and we just have to bring our A game. We have to do everything, and that includes lineouts and scrums, the work of the backs, on the floor, everything has to be up there to gain a win. Just going from what I could see this morning we’ve made a good start and hopefully it continues from there.”