Two routes but room for just one at summit

IN taking different routes to successful starts to this Heineken Cup campaign, today’s Pool One showdown between Scarlets and Munster could well be seen as a showcase for quite different approaches to team rebuilding.

That the two unbeaten sides playing this afternoon for the first game in a back-to-back series that may prove pivotal to the outcome of the group are slugging it out in Llanelli and not southern France, where Castres face last year’s finalists Northampton Saints, is a source of some satisfaction in itself.

Something though, has to separate these Celtic cousins and it could come down to a choice between Scarlets’ Extreme Makeover philosophy and what a cynical eye might view as Munster’s Steptoe and Son approach.