The word haemorrhage crops up regularly when discussing the player drain from the provinces, and so much so in Munster that they could be tempted to employ some paramedics rather than a coaching staff. In the last two years, they've almost been bled dry.

Since this time last year, Munster have lost the services of Richard Wallace, Brian Begley, Terry Kingston, Paul McCarthy, Gabriel Fulcher, Ben Cronin, Liam Toland, John "Packo" Fitzgerald, Pat Murray, Brian Walsh and Garry Halpin. All of which compounds the loss of Keith Wood, Paul Burke, David Corkery, Rob Henderson and Paul Wallace. That's practically an entire team - and a pretty good one at that.

Accordingly, the prophets of doom are gathering. At the very least, the playing field in this season's interprovincials appears to have been evened out as the champions taking a first tentative step in the retention of their title away to Connacht tomorrow.

"It's a big drain," concedes Niall O'Donovan, co-opted onto the Munster management team with joint coaches Declan Kidney, Jerry Holland and Colm Tucker after John Bevan and Andy Leslie rejected the IRFU's overtures to become Munster's director of rugby.

"You're talking about quality players," he adds. "They're not easy to come by down here. What we're using now are a lot of young guys and we're hoping they're going to come through. They're good quality guys. I mean, there's nothing wrong with the squad that's there at the moment. They've worked very hard. It's just a case of waiting to see how they react in competition really."

While acknowledging that it's going to be a more difficult season, O'Donovan was encouraged by last week's wins over Edinburgh and Caledonia. "Scotland are facing the same problems as we are really. Maybe not to the same extent, but the provincial sides over in Scotland have gone about fully contracting 22 players each, and if we can beat them with a 50-50 mix of full-timers and part-timers, then we're still keeping our head above water."

Because Munster have seven players in the international squad, they are better off than most. This at least gives them 10 full-time players to work with (even if they duplicate each other in several positions) along with a part-time group of 12 which can be extended to 20 (they are paid a retainer of £7,500 plus match fees).

However, aside from last week's intensive mini-tour to Scotland, this is still something of a half-way house. The part-timers train with the full-timers at 7.0 a.m., then go to work while the professionals rest or have another session at 11.0 a.m., before all come together again for another session in the evening.

"It's very hard on the part-time guys," says O'Donovan. "They're not on the same playing pitch really. The most important part of training is the rest in between. But you're trying to cram in most of it in the evening when they're tired."

This is crucial, for a fitness expert such as Giles Warrington at Limerick NCTC maintains too many players were not going into games fresh last season. It's no surprise, for example, that Munster, Connacht and Leinster all complained of fatigue last weekend in their final warm-up games, after the temptation to intensify their build-up on mini-tours proved too hard to resist. Thus, from both the players' point of view and the coaches', Holland would prefer that the squad were fully professional.

Such a move might have the added benefit of stemming the drain towards the English clubs. "We have to work on the players that are here at the moment. It's important that they're kept here for a few years, that we're not developing players to show up well in the European Cup and then have them taken off to England so we're left to start from scratch again.

"Whoever's gone, I don't think there's much we can do about it, because we just haven't the money to get them out of contract and bring them back. The important thing is that we work at keeping the players we have here. If that means offering them more money, then that's the way we have to go."

O'Donovan is not one for blowing his own trumpet, and though there's a groundswell of opinion within the game that he should be offered the director of rugby job in Munster on the back of coaching Shannon to three league titles, he doesn't necessarily subscribe to it. He will hand over the reins at Shannon to Pat Murray, although his recent experience with club and province gives him a good insight into the game's structures. Ideally, he would prefer to see a structure more along the lines of New Zealand's, progressing naturally from club to province through to international. But the European Cup's timing doesn't allow for that.

Beyond that, O'Donovan favours a reduced AIL first division. "I would prefer to see eight teams of a higher standard. Alright, it might mean all the top players gravitate towards those eight clubs, but last year you could divide the first division in two and that's not doing anybody any benefit. Unless the top players in the country are with six to eight teams, then I don't think you're going to go anywhere really."

He is attracted by the idea of clubs' amalgamating to form "super" clubs, maintaining "the clubs could hold onto their identity and have more control over their destiny".

"Four provincial sides isn't a broad enough base to pick a national side from. You could see two Dublin clubs, one each from Limerick and Cork and so on, or whatever, then you're talking about eight guys for every position playing top-class rugby every weekend. You need to bring up the standard of eight teams."

And, in what sounds like a critique of the policy being pursued by Leinster and Munster, O'Donovan adds: "I don't know whether going overseas and bringing in players is going to help it. I'm not fully sold on that myself."

Then again, if Munster are undone by Connacht and/or Leinster sides containing overseas players, they might have to review their policy. Particularly if they continue to be bled dry.