This one has been ear-marked for quite some time. It may have lost some of its lustre due to the improbability of Munster progressing to the knock-out stages of the Heineken European Cup for the fifth year in a row, but it's still the pride of Thomond Park against the English champions-elect. It's still going to be some occasion.

Forget the calculations and the remote, complex requirements for Munster to go through. No less than Gloucester - who know that a win will secure first place in the pool and most probably a home quarter-final given they are the competition's leading try scorers by a country mile - Munster have buckets to play for.

Not the least of these is pride in their jerseys, a pride that was stung by their failure in Perpignan last week and by their earlier four-try to one mauling in Kingsholm. The passing of time won't have eased the pain and they'll have a strong sense of vengeance burning from within today.

There's also Anthony Foley's record 50th appearance in the competition, and then there's their Thomond Park record as well.

Unbeaten in European competition at the venue, Munster haven't lost to anyone at their Limerick citadel since Leinster won an interpro here in 1995.

As an aside, a Munster win would greatly enhance the odds of Leinster securing a home quarter-final regardless of their match in Bristol tomorrow, though one suspects this mightn't be uppermost in the minds of Jim Williams and company. Just a hunch.

For the record, barring a slip-up of remarkable proportions by Perpignan losing to Viadana (granted Toulouse did help Ulster three years ago by losing to Ebbw Vale) for Munster to overtake Gloucester and thereby earn a place in the quarter-finals, most likely the best they can hope for is a three-way tie at the top of Pool Two in the event of a win today.

Even then, however, Munster would need to win and outscore Gloucester by four tries and 27 points, or score five tries more. It is, undoubtedly, a highly unlikely scenario and it might prove more of a distraction than anything else to the primary goal of winning. Accordingly Alan Gaffney is endeavouring to keep things simple.

"We won't be going gung-ho because you can't be doing that against a side of Gloucester's quality. We've got to be patient, build through the phases which we didn't do in Perpignan last week and see how it goes."

It's impossible to get away from the mathematical logistics of the occasion however, with Munster supporters praying that Harry Houdini is not only alive and well, but has relocated to Limerick.

"We'll try to win the match first and see what happens after that," said Gaffney, like a true pro, which is undoubtedly the approach which the Munster players will take into the game.

Nevertheless, he also conceded "some of the Munster players were saying that if they got two tries up by half-time you'd never know what might happen when the pressure came on Gloucester".

Gloucester are declining to announce their side until an hour before kick-off but it's expected to fall along predictable lines, with the only notable absentee being Marcel Garvey, who strained his hamstring in the defeat of Viadana last week.

James Simpson-Daniel, a searingly talented runner and rightly regarded as one of the great hopes of English back play, is the probable replacement. The elusive flyer was out with pneumonia since the autumn and only returned to the side last week when coming on as a replacement in the second-half against Viadana. Yet, he scored a try and had a hand in three others. The unfortunate Mossie Lawlor may have seen the back of one flyer, almost literally, only to find himself lining up against another.

Munster are unchanged from last week. Killian Keane had a stomach bug during the week but is expected to be on the bench. However, there was no avoiding the conclusion Paul O'Connell's workrate, physical presence around the pitch and dynamism with the ball in hand was missed.

The absence of so many of their naturally penetrative runners creates difficulties in building through the phases, never mind Gloucester's more obvious pace out wide as well, while up front Gloucester's pack did do something of a number on the Munster eight at Kingsholm.

On the one hand this line-up reinvokes uncomfortable memories of traditionally difficult games against English sides with big packs, even in the recent marches to semi-finals and finals, namely Bath and Northampton. But it also has shades of seemingly even more irrelevant fixtures at Thomond Park at home to Harlequins and Wasps. Each of them were soundly beaten, most probably just for being who they were.

Munster v Gloucester

Thomond Park, 2.45

Today: Network 2, BBC 1