Munster v Edinburgh: Perhaps Leinster and Munster were mentally a little sidetracked by a certain upcoming event. They are not robots after all, and in each instance it needed something to galvanise them out of their torpor. In Leinster's case it was the reality of a poor first-half performance, a 19-7 interval deficit and a half-time rollicking from Michael Cheika.

In Munster's case it was the sinbinning of Anthony Horgan. Whether a telling contrast or not, the Munster players responded, without recourse to an interval time-out, which is perhaps what prompted Declan Kidney's satisfaction afterwards. "I think what pleased me was the way the players took ownership of what happened out there, before and during the match," he said.

Inevitably, the focus quickly turned to Lansdowne Road next Sunday. That match was assuredly in mind when Kidney was asked about the performances of Anthony Horgan and John Kelly. "You don't go from being good enough to play for Ireland against New Zealand and become a bad player overnight. I think Anthony is a very good player," emphasised Kidney. "Every player has different stages in their career, but nothing he did surprised me tonight. He was probably a little bit ring rusty but he'll get better and better the more games he gets."

When it was put to him that Kelly's performance made him favourite for the number 13 jersey, Kidney smiled his deliberately non-committal smile and said: "Well, we'll just have to see how training goes during the week. But he did have a good game. John has a number of caps under his belt at centre so we'll just have a look at the best combinations for next weekend."

Jerry Flannery was the one casualty. "He's got a little bit tight in his lower leg," said Kidney. But his withdrawal appeared partly precautionary. Marcus Horan's slightly torn calf - a notoriously slow healer - makes him the most doubtful of their frontline troops.

Mick O'Driscoll attributed the turnaround from the previous week to focusing more on themselves and especially working on their defence, in what he described as "as fast a game as I've played in a long while. I think for us it was a great game to have leading into next weekend. Now Leinster probably wouldn't play as open a game as them but certainly wouldn't be far off it."

While their Euro form has been good, O'Driscoll admitted: "Our Celtic League form has been nothing short of ridiculous really, because we aspire to much higher things than that. To lose three Celtic League matches on the trot is not us."