SOS. Wanted: one junior prop, ideally two, available to play rugby tomorrow. Perks of the job include playing for the champions of Ireland live on television, with the prospect of more appearances to follow.

Such a distress signal would be hilarious if it wasn't actually true. An extraordinary injury jinx has decimated the St Mary's first-team squad on the eve of their opening defence of the title against old foes Young Munster, E tomorrow, to the extent that they are without five of their first-choice props: Emmet Byrne, Peter Coyle, David Clare, Noel Foxe and Pat Duggan.

Coyle was first to fall, his broken arm perhaps ruling him out for the season. Clare was then sidelined indefinitely due to a fractured disc - he will return to see a specialist in the new year. Last Saturday Duggan injured his knee ligaments and on Wednesday evening St Mary's coach Brent Pope learnt that Foxe, their under-21 international, had sustained a back injury that will require rehabilitation for four to five weeks.

Byrne was withdrawn from tomorrow's game at Leinster's behest due to a back strain. Also withdrawn were Flanker Trevor Brennan (who injured his shoulder while training with the province on Wednesday) and Eddie Hekenui, who is having an MRI scan on his back complaint.

With Malcolm O'Kelly away, John McWeeney a long-term absentee and Ross Doyle out with an Achilles tendon strain, St Mary's will be able to field only two of the pack which started last season's final.

"As things stand we have one prop, Jock O'Connor, hooker Peter Smyth and AN Other in the front-row," bemoaned an incredulous Pope yesterday. "I had presumed we would be well covered with five props, even when Dave and Peter got injured, but now with five ruled out we have got to provide another three. What club in the country has eight props of senior standard? "We have one prop two days before the first league match. It's hardly the ideal start," said Pope. "There's also a safety issue here, because neither myself nor (club president) Paul Dean want to promote a prop from the J3s to take on Peter Clohessy."

The IRFU have been informed of the champions' predicament, although Pope concedes that the union would not be favourably disposed towards postponing a match that is scheduled to be televised live by RTE. A somewhat similar situation arose last season when Shannon claimed one of their props was injured in the warm-up to their match against Terenure, leading to non-contested scrums. Terenure's victory ended the risk of any post-match complaints. Ironically the IRFU sent out a missive this week reminding clubs of their obligations to have a mandatory five front-row forwards in their 21-man squads on match days. While St Mary's are reluctant to forfeit the match, were they to compel the match-day referee to have uncontested scrums from the kick-off, the referee would report that to the union.

They in turn could take the view that St Mary's were guilty of misconduct and thus take any action which they deemed appropriate, on the grounds that St Mary's had not covered all eventualities adequately.

Unless, of course, a junior prop or two jumps out of the woodwork in the next 24 hours.