Kidney eyes the bigger picture

DECLAN Kidney didn’t believe Munster’s clinical 33-9 demolition of Leinster at Musgrave Park yesterday was the ideal dress rehearsal for the first outing in the Heineken European Cup at Sale on Saturday week.

“I’m glad we’re not playing them next week,” he claimed, but surely that must have been tongue-in-cheek after the manner in which Leinster were made to look so ordinary.

A full house turned up at Musgrave Park already a little downbeat over the absence of injured key players Paul O’Connell, Peter Stringer, Anthony Horgan and Christian Cullen. And they would have been fearing the worst when informed that John Hayes with an infected neck gland and centre Trevor Halsted, troubled by a shoulder muscle injury, were last -minute absentees.