O’Connell red return sours vintage display

ON ONE hand, writing about Munster playing at home in the Heineken Cup is the simplest assignment in the world.

If you’re stuck – say, jammed a mile outside Charleville with 10 minutes to kick-off – then you could just throw a handful of cliches up into the air and watch them arrange themselves on the page like iron filings tumbling around a magnet.

Fronting up. Red Army. Sixteenth man. The fortress.