RUGBY/European Cup:Declan Kidney is economical with words. The Munster coach has had to listen to a few spoofers in his time, many dumb questions, cranks, a share of character assassins, a sprinkling of critics and occasionally someone who knows what they are talking about.   Johnny Wattersonreports

The years have taught him to err on the side of circumspection. When you ask him whether the team will miss Paul O'Connell this weekend, you are, well, asking for it.

You wonder about what category of limp questioning that lame duck belongs in. On the other side of the phone you can hear just the faintest sound of chuckling. Often Kidney's economy is a good thing. "No one wants to lose their captain," he says diplomatically. "Our way has always been to try and bring players on. We've Mick O'Driscoll, Donncha O'Callaghan and Donnacha Ryan there."

For Munster this is a season fraught with the possibility of repeating the disappointment of last year and also exciting in that there is a similar pack - minus its most influential player - and a back line that looks livelier than ever. When All Black Doug Howlett arrives in January, it will take on a more sparkling look and the hope is Munster, at that stage, will still be competing for the knock- out stages.

This weekend is a serious test for the side that has never lost to a French team in Thomond Park in 12 seasons of Heineken European Cup. But the combined pressure of Munster's need to win, having lost last week to Wasps, and Clermont's relative tranquillity having picked up a win with a bonus point, puts quite a complexion on the game.

Kidney believes a full-strength Munster with the players playing to their capabilities are a stronger side this year than last year and any year. "I think we are," he says. "I think we have been getting stronger for the last 10 years and bringing young players through has been successful. In a way that is half of our job. But being stronger is always relative to what the opposition is doing," he adds. "Bonnaire (Julien), Smit (John) and Baby (Benoit - three more international players, who have joined Clermont this season) . . . If you look at Clermont they have two Georgian props, two Argentinians and a South African and that's just their frontrow.

"The market has taken a quantum leap. It happens sometimes in football when a team comes along and starts recruiting. You have a player like the Argentinian Ledesma in the squad and then you recruit John Smit (World Cup winning South African captain)," he adds laughing at how far removed this world of professional purchasing power is from Ireland. "We're lucky in that we have players like Jerry Flannery and Frankie Sheahan. But Clermont are clearly one of the teams who are favourites to win the competition this season. Because of their recruitment and organisation over the last two years, they have taken a professional decision with a view to winning the trophy."

While not quite as extravagant, Munster have, nonetheless, taken on a different look over the last two seasons. Lifeimi Mafi, Rua Tipoki, Paul Warwick, Kieron Lewis and Niall Ronan have all come in, while scrumhalf Gerry Hurley, who is cover for Peter Stringer this weekend, has graduated from the academy. "If you keep playing the way you play people can tie you down," says Kidney in an open declaration of his intention to try to build more variations into the old and successful Munster model.

"Having different personnel naturally changes the way you play. Some players age, some are out of contract, some get injured. One ingredient can change everything."

The imperative now is to beat a team that beat the team that beat Munster last year. Llanelli put Munster out of the European Cup last season and last week in the first round Clermont ran in seven tries against them. But pragmatic as well as circumspect, Kidney holds little store in never having lost to a French team in Limerick. Each side arrives with a different set of skills and few have come as well armed as the newly-moneyed French. "We will take a good look at Clermont. Ignore them at your peril, " he says.

"We have to try and win. That can be a plus or minus . . . They won last week and that can let them play, let them take calculated risks that you can take when you play away from home. Those teams that won last week won confidence and those that lost will be rolling up their sleeves."

That is an aspect of the game in which Munster excel. Backs against the wall. Big team arriving with international names. Tailor made for them really. Oops, is that Kidney chuckling again?