Leading from the front

PAUL O’CONNELL has been here before, in a Munster team of plucky underdogs trying to punch above their weight against European big guns.

Just never on the opening day of a Heineken Cup campaign, and certainly not as two-time champions defending their Thomond Park fortress.

Tomorrow’s visit of Northampton Saints is not a do-or-die knockout game on faraway foreign soil, but a Pool 1 opener in Limerick.