Toulon the biggest test of Damien Varley’s career

Clearly the mantra coming from the Munster Brains Trust in the immediate fallout of their restorative win in Galway was that some players will have to boldly go where their performance levels have never gone before against the Toulon galacticos in the Stade Vélodrome next Sunday.

Damien Varley is happy to embrace the mantra, describing next Sunday's Heineken Cup semi-final as the biggest of the 30-year-old's career, which, despite 116 games for Munster and two Irish caps, it actually is.

Four seasons ago he was on the bench for six Heineken Cup games, and in 2010/'11 he started all six pool games when Munster missed out on the knock-out stages for the first time in 13 campaigns. In 2011/'12, Varley started six pool victories but come the quarter-final against Ulster at Thomond Park, Mike Sherry was preferred. Last season Varley started a couple of pool games before Sherry was again preferred in both the quarter-final against Harlequins and the semi-final against Clermont.

Huge hill
"It would mean a lot to me," said Varley on the possibility of reaching the final, before quickly adding: "I've never started a semi-final so that's all I'm focusing on and I dare not to look any further. This is a huge fixture and it's a huge hill we have to overcome yet. It's going to be a big week for us and only a fool would look any further than next week."

Accordingly, Varley freely admits this is the biggest game of his career. "I think so, if I'm lucky enough to get selected," adds the hooker with justifiable caution. "That's certainly the way I'm going to be looking at it. We all take knocks in our careers and unfortunately I was dropped for," and he doesn't complete the tale of his omission two seasons ago against Ulster. "Three weeks ago was the first quarter-final I started in my career, so yeah, I'm looking forward to what happens this week and hopefully selection and going down to the south of France and playing."

Hence, he’s also happy to be amongst those who needs to produce the performance of his life too. “I think so. It’s cup rugby for us from now on, after a little slip-up on the Pro12 last week we’ve put ourselves into a position where it’s cup rugby and in the last two [league] fixtures we have, we need to come away with a lot of points.

Equally, you’re talking standards, going away to Marseille next week to play Toulon, it’s going to be the performance of everyone’s careers.”

There’s little doubt he’ll start on Sunday, having replaced Sherry in the defeat in Murrayfield to be a regular starter in their Heineken Cup run since Sherry ruptured the cruciate ligament in his left knee in December.

Varley was in the team beaten 32-16 in Toulon three seasons ago and admits: “I think it was probably the most intimidating game I’ve played in my Munster career. I remember getting off the bus and walking through a kind of tunnel of supporters and the abuse we were getting. You could feel the heat and the passion from them and then we probably didn’t turn up that day. We gave away some stupid penalties, we’d sin bins and we were just physically dominated for the entire game. That’s my memory of Toulon.”