Anthony Foley expecting Munster to step up to the challenge

Munster's rich history in the European Cup is generously dotted with examples of them not performing in the league on the previous weekends before rallying from within to confound sceptics with their performance a week later. No less than the rest of us, Anthony Foley is about to discover whether they have the characters to repeat history.

“I would like to think so,” he ventured, before citing the quality of their training, albeit mindful of their form of late and even this season. “But where we need to get to for the weekend, we need to get our priority right. If we have the ball, we need to use it. How we protect it. We need to get that right.”

In any event, he conceded that this is a potentially season-defining game.

“Well, the same game last year was against Clermont at home and we lost that and when we got to round six that was the game that cost us getting out of our group.”

Our standards

“Obviously this is only our second game in Europe but it’s still round three and the first of our two head-to-heads and it’s important that we focus on this game and make sure that we drive our standards.

“You know, 7:45 on a Saturday evening in Thomond Park is normally a very good time to play a game.”

On foot of Aaron Mauger arriving as head coach, Foley admitted that Leicester "do have a lot of strings to their bow. They have a huge pack, that will scrummage you, will win their lineout, will maul you if you allow them. And (Ben) Youngs at half back is good, (Owen) Williams, (Thomas) Bell, they put the forwards around the pitch but when they get the ball, they can go through the middle of you.

“If they want to play with width, they can do that too. They have a back three that can cut anyone open. It is important for us to make sure we look after our ball and play in the right areas of the pitch which we haven’t done in the last couple of weeks.”

In recording bonus point wins at home to Stade Francais and away to Treviso, as well as winning five of six Premiership games, Leicester are averaging 60 per cent possession. Hence, Munster would have to "train with intensity, understand it, players and coaches."

Awareness of Leicester’s strengths “should heighten their awareness around how good this team are and what we need to do to win the game”.

The injury toll across the provinces, with Munster perhaps being relatively lightest hit, appears to be unprecedented. However Foley reminded us when asked if he had ever witnessed an injury crisis as bad as this. “I had 17 players I couldn’t pick for the (Pro12) final last year.... I had 15 players I couldn’t pick for (European) round six last year. So there’s a lot of attrition going on, a lot of bangs and bruises.”

Back training

“We’re fortunate at the moment that, maybe it was the week we had off against Stade, but apart from Peter (O’Mahony), Stephen (Archer), Tommy (O’Donnell) and Duncan (Williams), most of the other players are taking part in training.

"Peter McCabe and Johnny Holland are back training but they're not back playing yet."

“So we’re okay. We’d 40 players at training today, training fully and it’s about us getting our game together.

“Look, I do understand fellas coming off a World Cup, I do understand that there’s 13 games in a row, which is unprecedented but that’s what was organised for us.”

“It’s not ideal,” he added with a wry smile.

“I don’t think any player would like it but that’s why I think it’s important that you manage the players. We’ve had to make eight changes a number of weeks in a row so we’re not flogging dead horses.

“Fellas, when they’re fatigued, there is more likelihood of getting injured, so it’s about keeping as many fresh bodies out on the pitch and looking after them during the week, not mollycoddling them but making sure they’re fit for action.

“We’ll find out at the end of this run of games has that worked or not.”

“Sometimes you have to take a bit of pain to get to the end result and hopefully our little bit of pain has been taken.”