Anxious to make a point

Frankie Sheahan is ready to play his part in a crucial front-row battle, Charlie Mulqueen reports.

THE battle of the front-rows may well decide the outcome of the Munster-Wasps Heineken Cup semi-final, a fact not lost on Munster hooker Frankie Sheahan.

Arguably, he has been handed one of the most difficult tasks of all to cope with his enormous opposite number and bang-in-form Samoan, the 19 stone 10 lbs Trevor Leota, who gave up a World Cup squad place to stay with Wasps and earn money to support his family.

Clearly, Trevor's heart is in the right place and Warren Gatland makes no secret of his belief that Leota is a potential match-winner.

"I got my first Munster cap against Leota in 1996/'97 against Western Samoa at Musgrave Park," Sheahan recalls. They beat us 35-25 and he was sent off for a high tackle on Pat Murray. He's tough out. I have a lot of respect for him, but I'll just do my best to impose my game on him and see how that goes. He's a good ball carrier who scores tries. He's also a good tackler and his line-out throwing has improved."

It's been a remarkable down-and- up season for the 27 year-old, who plays his 37th Heineken Cup game for Munster on Sunday. It nearly didn't start at all after he was found guilty of taking a banned substance until he spent almost every dime he had and a hell of a lot of time clearing his name. Ever since, the graph has moved steadily upward.

But there are still moments when he casts his mind back to the dark days, no matter how hard he tries to look ahead.

"It would have been easy for me to go away and get bitter about it but I don't think that's productive", he says. "All I wanted to do was to go back playing rugby and that's what I'm doing, that's what I love and that's when I'm happy.

"But it is something you'd be fearful of happening again. At the end of the day, if somebody put something into this sandwich I have here in front of me, I'd never know, but it's my fault once I've taken it. Plus the fact nothing has been really done about the levels of salbutamol in the system. I would highly recommend people not to take it at all, rather should they go for salmeterol which is a longer acting version of salbutamol and there's no cut-off point in the amount you can take.

"In extreme circumstances like I was at that time, you wouldn't have to worry about the amount you took. The experts have told me it's ridiculous to have this cut-off point because who's to say an asthmatic can only have two or four puffs on the pitch when I was always told it was on a need to have basis. If an asthmatic needs 20 puffs, so be it. It's one of these things they mightn't take seriously until something happens to a player on the pitch."

Sheahan suffers from exercise induced asthma, a milder form of the real thing, and has had it since he was nine months old. He suffers at various times of the year. But, understandably, he's "sick of talking about it".

Things like his contribution to Munster's great win over Gloucester help erase the memories.

"Beating them at Thomond Park, being lucky enough to score a try and being nominated as man of the match - that has been the highlight," he says. "It probably it was our best display of the season, but I always look back to Bourgoin in France. It was low profile at the time, but it was a massive game back then and was also up there with one of the best performances. We probably wouldn't be here today without that 18-17 result."

The Munster scrum took a bit of a battering at various stages of the Stade game. A repeat on Sunday could have drastic consequences and Frankie sees his role as absolutely crucial.

"I take equal responsibility with the props when the scrum goes badly," he insists. "I'm right in the centre. Everybody is driving through the hooker. You'll annihilate a scrum with a weak hooker. All the best hookers in the world are serious scrummagers.

"There is a thing in the media that when a scrum goes badly, it's the props' fault, but I would bring the hooker into that as well. And when things go well, equally the hooker is entitled to the credit and any prop will tell you that.

"I don't know if our problems against Stade had something to do with going 17-0 up. Maybe we thought the game was won and we took our eye off the ball. They're a serious scrummaging pack and they caught us on one or two and I'll accept that. But we actually caught them on one or two and we'll be hoping to do so again on Sunday."

It won't be easily done. Wasps aren't champions of England and champions-elect (in most considered views) for nothing. Fortunately from a Munster viewpoint, it's something the players are all very conscious of.

"Warren Gatland has drilled them superbly," Sheahan says. "They have an excellent forward pack, an excellent defence system, a very good maul. I suspect they will take us on up front where they've been beating teams all season. They have some big men like Simon Shaw, Worsley, Dowd, Dallaglio.

"Once they get going, they're hard to stop. As for home advantage, the longer this competition goes on, the less it matters because teams are so professional. You have English World Cup winners in that team used to playing in front of big crowds. We know we're up against it."