Conor Murray’s reputation as the leading scrum-half in the Northern Hemisphere, if not the world, will mean the Munster star can expect a lot of attention from Racing 92’s forwards in Bordeaux tomorrow but Johann van Graan says his number nine will not be fazed.

Munster boss Johann van Graan will welcome back a trio of internationals for his side’s Guinness PRO14 trip to Cardiff Blues on Saturday as he attempts to guide the province through a four-game block without his Ireland front-liners.

CJ Stander believes Johann van Graan will have headaches finalising his back-row trio for next Sunday’s all-important European Champions Cup game against Racing 92.

Connacht were obliged to bring a below-strength squad to Thomond Park on Saturday night and as a consequence paid a heavy price against a committed Munster side badly in need of a comprehensive victory. 

Keith Earls has understood for a while that becoming a family man has helped to relegate rugby down the pecking order of priorities. 

It says much about Munster’s growing confidence and maturity as a squad that Ian Keatley could share a laugh with his captain after committing two knock-ons inside a minute.

I suppose it’ll start now anyway, whatever happens in Kildare Street. Candidates needed, so insert sportsperson’s name here, writes Michael Moynihan.

Convinced that “language and death converge with particular power in poets”, two awardwinning versifiers traverse the globe looking up the places where other poets died.

Ronan O’Gara served as chaperone when Conor Murray stepped blinking into the white heat of Test rugby on an August night in Bordeaux six years ago and the Munster scrum-half has returned that favour more than a few times since.

It says plenty about Rory Scannell’s form this season and his immense contribution to Munster’s run of form that he has kept his place in the centre ahead of Springbok Jaco Taute and Francis Saili, an All Black.

Ronan O’Mahony is delighted to report there is life after injury for Tyler Bleyendaal.

New Munster boss Rassie Erasmus has found himself in the midst of an injury crisis at fly-half, with only Ian Keatley apparently ready to start the season.

HUGH MAXTON’s Happen is a ‘memoir-novel’ about the coming of age in the 1950s and 1960s of Godwin Happen, an enigmatic young man with a taste for literature and politics from a Protestant family in Dublin. 

Versatile Munster forward Billy Holland believes the hard-fought 9-7 win in Belfast at the weekend can help turn their season around.

Munster head coach Anthony Foley was advising staff, players, and public alike in UL yesterday that it will take a concerted effort by all concerned if the team’s morale and well-being are to be restored after a bitterly disappointing run of bad results.

Two weeks of talking a good game have done little for Munster’s performance levels so what better moment than a big European night at Thomond Park for stand-in captain CJ Stander to demand his team start to match words with deeds.

Munster’s Andrew Conway has endorsed Ian Madigan’s World Cup challenge to follow one great performance with another.

Every award that comes the way of CJ Stander counts on his CV. Take seven Man of the Match gongs last season and another in Saturday’s opening Guinness Pro12 clash with Benetton Treviso as just some of the recent entries for the South African back-rower.

MICHAEL LONGLEY is one of the most popular Irish poets of the modern era. 

Given Matt O’Connor was fired as head coach by Leinster and Neil Doak is filling the role at Ulster until the arrival of Les Kiss, one might have expected Munster’s Anthony Foley to be displaying signs of pressure in the build-up to Saturday’s Guinness Pro12 final against Glasgow Warriors at the Kingspan Stadium, Belfast.

Anthony Foley will prepare for Saturday’s Guinness Pro12 final against Glasgow Warriors with injury problems exacerbating concerns about Munster’s poor game management in the narrow semi-final win over Ospreys.

Their chances of a Guinness Pro12 home semi-final have receded since drawing with Munster last Saturday but Paddy Jackson insists Ulster will go to Glasgow Warriors this weekend with only victory in mind.

RBS 6 Nations

Keith Earls may be back to his brilliant best in a red jersey, but the Munster flyer admits breaking into a winning Ireland team is out of his hands.

Guinness Pro12

Ireland full back Rob Kearney has said Ireland will not try to copy the French style of flair rugby when they take on Les Bleus in the Aviva on Saturday.

Anthony Foley admits it’s a "mystery" why JJ Hanrahan’s decided to quit Munster but respects the 22-year-old’s decision.

Munster’s position as one of European rugby’s movers and shakers came under renewed pressure yesterday as the province lost its fight to keep rising homegrown star JJ Hanrahan.

When you are playing second fiddle to the Ireland and Lions scrum-half and spending most, if not all, of every match on the bench, life as a professional rugby player can be more than frustrating.

The last-ditch heroics may have become a staple of Munster’s European campaigns but for Andrew Conway, the dramatic Champions Cup victory over Sale Sharks was a whole new experience.

Sporting teasers are the life’s blood of many a barstool conversation so here’s one that will have rugby fans all over the country perplexed: When Felix Jones captained Munster in the Guinness Pro12 match against Treviso, was he the first Leinsterman to do so?

Anthony Foley has been waiting for this week ever since his appointment as head Munster coach, and now that the first game of the new season — albeit a friendly against Gloucester at Kingsholm on Saturday — is almost here, the buzz about the man and all those around him was only too apparent at Cork IT yesterday.

Munster rugby have been given an initial allocation of 12,000 tickets for the Heineken Cup semi-final against reigning champions Toulon on Sunday April 27.

Munster coach Rob Penney has revealed how the stirring win over Toulouse was achieved by a combination of in-depth planning and near perfect on-field execution.

Munster 54 Cardiff Blues 13

The 23-year-old redhead sounds like a sport psychologist’s dream.