Leinster eye ‘six in the sticks’

APRIL is no time for fools, and the respective selections for this evening’s mouth-watering Magners League face-off at Thomond Park underlines just how serious things are set to become for Munster and Leinster.

“It has been a great campaign but we have a savage run-in,” acknowledged Munster’s big game specialist Doug Howlett yesterday. “Leinster, the Ospreys, Llanelli and Connacht in the Magners League; there’s absolutely no room for mistakes, we’ve got to take them one game at a time and target the points from each,” he said.

And that’s before the country’s leading provinces turn their attention to the small matter of european combat next Saturday. Leinster coach Joe Schmidt cannot be accused of eyeing anything beyond tonight’s grudgefest, naming his strongest XV. It’s a sentiment Howlett agrees with.