MUNSTER have turned to Tadhg Kennelly’s trainer with the Sydney Swans to knock them into shape for the new rugby season. Australian Bryce Cavanagh has been appointed Munster’s new strength and conditioning coach and takes over from the late Paul Darbyshire.

SOME of Ireland’s top rugby stars wore black arm bands yesterday as they completed the Irish stage of the cross-channel fundraising cycle for Munster’s former fitness coach Paul Darbyshire, who died on Monday after a long battle with motor neurone disease.

FORMER Munster strength and conditioning coach Paul Darbyshire has died from Motor Neurone disease, less than a day after the start of a fundraising cycle for his family and research into new treatment.

Munster fitness coach Paul Darbyshire died this morning.

MUNSTER rugby players and supporters are organising a series of charity events to support a colleague and friend diagnosed with motor neurone disease last year and to research into the debilitating condition.

IF a composite 15 was selected from the two starting line-ups prior to Saturday’s Magners League final, Munster would do well to get more than four in the team. That, in itself, was an accurate reflection of the task Tony McGahan’s men faced in their quest to regain the Celtic League crown they last won two years ago.

LAST Saturday Thomond Park hosted the latest meeting of Munster and Leinster in the Magners League, a game hyped in the usual terms: a huge battle, with unflinching confrontation. You know the drill.

ROY KEANE will join Ruby Walsh, Sean Kelly, the Munster rugby team and other Irish athletes and celebrities in Cork on June 19 to see off riders in the Munster Rugby Cycle in aid of Paul Darbyshire and Motor Neurone Disease Ireland.

THE Munster squad, minus its senior internationals, yesterday flew out to Lanzarote for a week-long warm-weather training camp.

JASON HOLLAND is the new Munster backs coach after head coach Tony McGahan completed the make-up of his back room team yesterday, while the Australian also made several key appointments within the provincial coaching structure.

Better than 2006? By general consensus, yes. While the manic fear of losing drove Munster to a first Heineken Cup victory over Biarritz, this time around there was a clinical, cold intensity about the manner in which they squeezed the resistance out of France’s finest. Six of the central characters relive one of this country’s finest sporting achievements.

DECLAN KIDNEY’S replacement as Munster coach may have big boots to fill, but at least he will do so with a full deck to choose from.