O'Gara and Langford hold key to victory

Interviewed on television over Christmas, Munster coach Declan Kidney was asked for his New Year wish list. "A win in Newport," he said succinctly. At the time you thought this was his typical, one-game-at-a-time, cute Cork pragmatism. Now that kick-off nears, you realise it wasn't so ultra cautious after all.

Daft though it may sound, Munster's season could indeed hinge on this one. To accentuate the positive, victory would leave them top of Pool Four, leaving them with a home game against Castres at Musgrave Park with which they could earn a probable home quarter-final. Defeat though, would probably tip the scales towards Newport.

At the risk of flogging the equation to death, in the event of the two teams finishing level on points they will be ranked firstly on results between the two teams, then tries scored in the two meetings, and if still unresolved, on points scored. If Newport win and score two tries or more, or alternatively one try and a winning margin of nine points or more, they will be ranked above Munster.

What's more, next weekend Newport could be travelling to a disinterested and understrength Bath, given they might be out of contention, and so the odds would be against Munster winning the group. To compound matters, the prospects of Munster squeezing into the last eight as the second best pool runners-up with eight points on tries scored would not be great.

To win, Kidney reckons, Munster will have to produce their best 80-minute performance of the season. One of the underlying factors in home wins outnumbering away wins by two to one in the Heineken European Cup is the propensity for early scores by home sides.

Munster are as good as most at it, as shown by their early barrage of 15 points in 13 minutes in the original meeting between these sides. However, Munster are not impregnable from the kick-off, the second-minute try by Castres in France a salient reminder of a similar start in the quarter-final two years ago in Colomiers.

Newport, by all accounts, have not been playing particularly well, or at any rate have been losing winnable matches. Shane Howarth has reputedly gone off the boil. But with a new competition and a win-or-bust scenario, that might well conspire to provoke a reaction.

Furthermore, recalling the way they breezed into the corner for two tries in Thomond Park, you only have to look at their big names up front and potent backline to realise they have the armoury to hurt Munster out wide.

That relative Achilles' heel has been made to look more vulnerable with the absence of Jason Holland and Mike Mullins, obliging Kidney to move John Kelly inside and play John O'Neill the wing. Of more worry, however, may the absence of Peter Clohessy who is suffering with a back strain and is doubtful.

If there are going to be key performances then, most probably, they'll be from John Langford and Ronan O'Gara. In last Friday's defeat to Leinster, as with their three other defeats in the preceding 22 games, Munster struggled in the lineout.

O'Gara is the team's talisman and Munster will struggle if O'Gara has another rare offcolour day as in Bath. Given top of the range Langford and O'Gara performances though, Munster have a good chance.