Munster may have fallen short of the mountain top at Twickenham last May but even so they had never scaled such heights in one season.

Lest we forget, they recorded the province's first back-to-back interprovincial titles before reaching the European Cup final.

How do they follow that?

"You don't worry about it, you don't follow it," says Declan Kidney. "Everything starts from zero and we see how we go from here. If we'd won the European Cup last season we'd still be doing the same thing. Like ourselves, Leinster, Ulster and Connacht are starting off from par. It's like Thursday in golf."

As Kidney acknowledges, citing the examples of Connacht two seasons ago and Ulster last season, history is against them. "Now the challenge is changing the history. That's why it's a completely new challenge. This time last year we had three guys in the World Cup panel and now we have 11 coming back from America, so you set new goals and new standards for yourselves.

"So it's a completely different competition even though you're playing against the same teams."

This challenge applies individually too, especially to the likes of John Hayes, Peter Stringer and Ronan O'Gara.

"My one fear is that a nation we can be over-critical in terms of what to expect," says Kidney, and applies it to Brian O'Driscoll and Shane Horgan.

"They're all 22 and in Irish rugby terms they're probably about four or five years off their best. Let's give them a chance to be at their best when they should be at their best, rather than over-expecting them now."

He's probably grateful enough to still have them, after overtures to the likes of his half-backs and Jeremy Staunton. One of the prices of Munster's success is that his players were pushed to the forefront of the shop-window, and no province has suffered a bigger drain.

Acutely mindful of the need to nurture talent from within, and comforted by his own working knowledge of the underage scene, Kidney shrugs his shoulders and gets on with it.

Indeed, more used than most to player turnover from his days coaching schools and under-age sides, you sense he enjoys this part of the challenge as much as any other. "The way I see it, with my own history in under-age, you can either moan about it or move on with the next crop." He cites the example of Keith Wood, arguably irreplaceable in any team. "There you have the Irish reserve hooker to take his place. He [Frankie Sheahan] has had two years on the bench under Mark McDermott and Keith Wood, he'll have learnt from both of them, so the way I'm looking at it, it's an opportunity for him to show himself.

"There's no point in regretting Keith being gone. If I was to look upon it in any other way it would be a lie to what I've been saying to Frank over the last two years - telling him that his opportunity will come."

Kidney's remit is also to push Sheahan with the next hooker(s) on the conveyor belt, which keeps rolling along.

"We have John Fogarty and Gerry Flannery, who have been Irish under-21 hookers and we need these boys coming through, by pitching them into a level they can handle without over-exposing them."

The drain was particularly acute in the back-row, where the loss of Eddie Halvey to London Irish compounded David Corkery's knee injury and Ken O'Connell's return to England for career reasons. "We're lucky we have Alan Quinlan, Anthony Foley and David Wallace. Only three can play so that solves one problem," he quips, though mindful of the need to put this trio under pressure for their places as well.

Munster probably couldn't have a tougher start than Ulster at Ravenhill next Friday. Despite last season's win at Queens, Munster haven't won there in a couple of decades and Harry Williams' men are clearly buzzing. .

Kidney concedes that the demands of last season and the Americas' tour compelled him to identify "rest" as his players' main need this summer, and so Munster were last out of the blocks in pre-season. "Whether that will catch us at the start of the season or not we'll have to wait and see. "We have to try and not be afraid, and go out and play our game. The important thing is to try and stay true to the way that we want to play. You look at last year's results and how many did we win by a point?" Three.

All of which merely underlines the fine line between success and failure. It'll be tougher this season too. Munster may play as well but find one-point results swinging against them. However, with Mick Galwey, Peter Clohessy and Anthony Foley on board once more, you sense they're better equipped than anyone to defy recent history.