Difficult week, difficult day?

Last Saturday Munster lost Paul O’Connell to an ankle injury and days later, Sam Tuitupou’s end-of-season departure was confirmed. Not to mention Ian Dowling telling his teammates he was retiring.

Mick O’Driscoll deals with the issues head-on when you raise them.

“Paulie, we’d all, me included, like him to be going to France with us,” said O’Driscoll. “I’m not going to say anything else.

“Everyone gets injured, that’s the nature of the game. It was Paulie last week, it could be me next week. These things happen. That doesn’t really affect the team.

“The thing with Dowling, everyone was very disappointed for Dowls, he’s been superb for us for the last number of years and he just got a freak injury.”

Was his announcement emotional for the group?

“It was, yeah. You’ve been playing with a guy for so long and he still would have had three, four, five years left if he wanted. A guy’s career cut short like that — it could be you the next day.

“We’re all supporting Dowls as much as we can but it’s a very tough time for him at the minute.

“It’d be naive to say we don’t think about things like that. We realise it’s part and parcel of the game but luckily it doesn’t happen that often. We’re lucky in Ireland that we’re looked after by the medics very well.

“Dowling’s been studying physiotherapy in UL and it’s great he has that, but I’m sure he’d give that up to play another two or three seasons. That’s just the way it is, unfortunately.”

O’Driscoll’s tour of duty with Perpignan in France a few years ago means he’s been consulted about Brive, Munster’s Amlin Cup opponents today. The immediate memories aren’t the best — he snapped a medial ligament there in 2003, “not a very happy place for me” but he can offer a context for the Frenchmen.

“They’re rated as one of the toughest teams to play at home. If you look at their results this season alone, they’ve beaten pretty much all the top sides at home. They’re probably different to other French sides in that they’re not crowded with internationals. They don’t have five or six in the French squad but that’s a positive too because it means they’re all playing together constantly for the year, very few of them go off on international duty during the year.

“I remember them as a very tough side when I played in France and I don’t think that’s changed.

“They’re probably stronger, if anything.”

Today’s venue? O’Driscoll remembers the Stade Municipal in Brive as a very big, wide pitch.

“The stands are a small bit back, but the atmosphere’s your typical hostile French atmosphere. That’s what we’ll be going over expecting, anyway. For us, we’ve been in France so many times, we’ve been everywhere so many times, that while you’d rather not (have that atmosphere), we’ve so much experience in the squad it won’t affect us.

“We’ll be as focused as we’ve been for any game and hopefully we’ll be good enough.”

With O’Driscoll estimating that Brive maul about 50% of their lineout ball, he’s expecting a busy day up front. “French sides like their scrummaging and at home they’ll see it as a good opportunity to take us on, the maul the same, but scrummaging against a French side, you know you’re in for a tough day.

“You know they’ll give it 100% in each scrum, whereas sometimes Irish, English, Welsh, even Italian teams mightn’t give 100% in every scrum. But against a French team in France, you know they’ll give 100% in every scrum. We know it’ll be a tough day in that regard, we’ve worked on that next week so hopefully we’ll be set in that regard.”

The winners today have a home semi-final as a reward, but as O’Driscoll puts it, preserving the home record is always a French priority.

“It’s difficult to explain. The mentality in France is that the home games are of the utmost importance and if you can pick up a few points away from home, great.

“That’s the way for a lot of teams, though for the top teams it’s completely different. Brive up to a couple of weeks ago were struggling, second or third from bottom, but as far as I know they’re clear of the relegation battle now.

“Whoever wins this weekend has a home semi-final and it would be viewed as an easier route to the final than being away for the semi-final. That’ll add an extra little bit for the weekend.”

O’Driscoll is honest about the relative attraction of the Amlin Challenge Cup.

“I won’t sit here and pretend we’re happy we’re not in the Heineken Cup.

“It’s still disappointing but this is still a European competition and a good one, when you look at the other sides in it — past winners of the European Cup.

“The point has been proven. We needed to improve our set piece a bit and we’ve done that. We needed to improve certain things in our backs, which have been done, and fair enough.

“We’re losing a couple of experienced guys at the end of the season but a lot of young guys have come in and got experience this season.

“Going forward I think we’re in a healthy state. Tony (McGahan) has mentioned there’s one contract left for an overseas player, and when all those things are added up it shows that major surgery wasn’t needed.

“It was up to us to get things right internally and we’ve done that.”

What better way to end a hard week?