The three key battles that will decide the Guinness Series opener

It’s hard to believe that four years have passed since Declan Kidney was handed the poisoned chalice of having to beat Argentina to retain a top-eight IRB seeding a few weeks prior to the 2011 World Cup pool draw.

IT was difficult leaving Cork last Saturday afternoon given the magnificent autumnal sunshine and the twin attractions of a good old fashioned dogfight between Cork Con and Young Munster in the AIL followed by the seasonal offering of jazz. At least the alternative had its attractions.

The quality of rugby in the opening rounds of the Heineken Cup hasn’t been superb but that will be corrected with December’s pivotal back-to-back contests.

You know the landscape is changing when Munster have to employ every marketing strategy in the book to fill Thomond Park for a Heineken Cup pool game.

It’s amazing how much you can learn from just one round of Heineken Cup action in respect of the aspirations and approaches of the various teams. Leinster and Munster between them may have accounted for five of the last seven tournament victories but it is already abundantly clear that a serious challenge to that Irish superiority is about to manifest itself over the weeks and months to come.

For the second year in-a-row, Leinster opened the defence of their crown against a side making their Heineken Cup debut.

It says much about the continuing allure of the Munster vs Leinster rivalry that 46,280 people turned up at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday night to assess how Rob Penney’s more expansive game plan would match up to the more established wide threat posed by the European champions.

The Aviva Stadium is set to rock for the first time this season on Saturday night with the arrival of a new-look Munster side for the first of their seasonal encounters with Leinster in the RaboDirect Pro 12.

As Ireland bid a hasty retreat from New Zealand for the second time in eight months, they do so with a heavy heart and a feeling of what might have been.