Time to stand and deliver

The spectre of European rugby looms large as ever as Leinster meet Munster for the first time this season but there is plenty of incentive in both camps for a positive outcome tonight to put right chastening recent RaboDirect Pro12 form.

The rival provinces clash at Aviva Stadium this evening (6:30pm) to continue the recent league custom of booking a derby date immediately ahead of the start of their Heineken Cup adventures but whereas past meetings have always had one eye on the blue riband of club competitions, this season’s highly competitive domestic competition has demanded both head coaches focus on tonight’s game as an early need-to-win league confrontation.

Since inheriting the Munster squad from Tony McGahan in July, new head coach Rob Penney has declared himself delighted with the progress his charges have made in adopting a more expansive gameplan based on instinctive decision-making from all 15 players on the pitch.

Last weekend’s defeat at league champions Ospreys may have been the first real bump in the road in that regard and despite knowing it would be thrown across his path eventually, the biggest game of his tenure to date represents the first litmus test of the province’s bouncebackability in Penney’s reign.

The Canterbury, New Zealand man criticised his side for falling flat in South Wales, lacking in both intensity and physicality, and never mind the European exertions to come, both Munster and Leinster need to get back on course tonight in a game that will hold no excuse for any further lack of either attribute.

Penney has kept faith with a backline that failed to cross the tryline in a 30-15 defeat at Liberty Stadium, meaning captain Doug Howlett is in line to make his 100th competitive appearance for Munster since leaving the All Blacks behind in January 2008.

Less than a year ago, after being ruled out for the season with an Achilles’ tendon injury, that might have seemed improbable but having assumed the captaincy from Paul O’Connell at the start of the season Howlett is enjoying a new lease of life, his wing play empowered by the sense of adventure Penney and backs coach Simon Mannix have introduced since their arrival.

That adventure has cost Munster at times with mistakes being punished, not least by Ospreys last weekend, and Howlett’s team will be expected to make amends in Dublin. There are six changes in a forward pack that conceded a penalty try, saw back row Tommy O’Donnell yellow carded and Damien Varley sent off in Swansea, though the hooker is named on the bench after being cleared to play following a disciplinary hearing in Edinburgh.

Irish internationals Donnacha Ryan and Peter O’Mahony make their first starts of the season, having come off the bench in their first games back since the summer last weekend, while Dave O’Callaghan returns to the back row at blindside in place of O’Donnell and Sean Dougall is back on the openside after Niall Ronan was on Thursday ruled out with a groin injury sustained in training.

Dave Kilcoyne starts at loosehead ahead of Wian du Preez, who is named on the bench with Marcus Horan still out with an eye injury.

Leinster are in similar straits. Joe Schmidt’s new contract extension, announced yesterday to take him through to the end of 2013-14 and keep the IRFU at bay, may have settled nerves in Leinster but the head coach’s wish for continuity has not been extended to his playing staff.

Schmidt has made 12 changes, two of them positional, to the side beaten so comprehensively by Connacht in Galway last Friday, many of them enforced as the injury list blighting the European champions grows ever longer.

While many of the changes indicate welcome returns to action for Jamie Heaslip, Kevin McLaughlin, Richardt Strauss, Brian O’Driscoll, Jonathan Sexton and Eoin Reddan, Schmidt saw Rob Kearney (back), Gordon D’Arcy (rib) and Quinn Roux (shoulder) all fail to complete the first half of the 34-6, five-try to nil Sportsground hammering of eight days ago.

Leinster face Munster with a completely new back line, including positional switches from fly-half to full-back for Ian Madigan and from wing to inside centre for Fergus McFadden in midfield with O’Driscoll. Isa Nacewa, ignoring illness when forced off the bench last weekend, moves onto the wing while Sexton starts at 10 in a half-back partnership with Reddan.

Only loosehead prop Heinke van der Merwe, lock Tom Denton and openside flanker Shane Jennings survive in the forwards, with Jennings shaking off the ill effects of an ankle injury sustained in the second half at Connacht.

Cian Healy, 25 tomorrow, has a bicep injury that keeps him pegged on 99 appearances for Leinster but No. 8 Heaslip leads his team on his 150th career appearance and tighthead prop Mike Ross earns his 70th cap for Leinster.