Ronan keen to show true colours

IF there is any one player with a whole barrel-full of extra incentive in this evening’s big Magners League clash against Leinster in Thomond Park, it’s Munster flanker Niall Ronan.

It’s not just because Ronan is from Leinster, played with them for four years before transferring south – though that in itself will always add a little extra needle. Alright, rugby is a professional sport now, free movement and all that – it’s not as if Ronan were doing the utterly unthinkable and transferring to play gaelic football with Dublin from his native Meath, with whom he had two years as a minor.

Still, the Munster-Leinster rivalry has always been keen, and since the advent of professionalism, and in an apparent contradiction (the best players on both sides, the internationals, have formed strong and enduring friendships), that rivalry has developed an even sharper edge. So, for Niall Ronan, there’s that. But there’s more.