Season will crank up a notch this weekend

AS the World Cup slowly but surely recedes into the backs of peoples’ minds, they now have the mouth-watering prospect of the renewal of the Leinster-Munster rivalry at the Aviva Stadium on Friday night.

The three meetings of the sides last season and their respective achievements in the Heineken Cup and Magners League have only served to whet the public’s appetite for more of the same. Leinster fans are getting used to the idea of edging their southern cousins and they won the corresponding game last year in Dublin 13-9, keeping Munster tryless for the sixth successive meeting.

Even when they lost the next game at Thomond Park by 24-23, they had many solid reasons for making light of it. Not only did they score the only try of the game through Shane Horgan, with Munster relying on a magical kicking contribution by the nerveless Ronan O‘Gara, they also had their minds on the following week’s Heineken Cup final against Northampton Saints.