Players must be wary of Poite

All eyes will be on Thomond Park this evening when Leinster face Munster in the blue riband event of Irish rugby. But with referee Romain Poite in the middle is it likely to be a contest of 15 against 15 for the full 80 minutes?

Fans of both Munster and Leinster have been treated to an enjoyable fly-half battle so far this season and on the Munster side it’s Ian Keatley who starts, with JJ Hanrahan taking a seat on the bench. Rob Penney has been sharing out the load so far and has used a league-high 35 players in four games. Whereas eight Pro 12 teams have at least one player who has played every minute of the opening rounds, Casey Laulala leads Munster with just 240 minutes of game time. That’s the lowest by far in the league, and by some distance.

Leinster’s Ian Madigan, fresh off a perfect six kicks from six against Cardiff topped off with a well-taken try, is given the nod for Leinster at fly-half. Brian O’Driscoll is out with a calf injury suffered in training so recent import Australian Lote Tuqiri comes back from a muscle injury to play at centre outside Gordon D’Arcy. In a world where Ronan O’Gara is coaching in France, rather than pulling on the red jersey, a 77% goal-kicking success rate for Munster’s kickers might look reasonable on the surface. However, there has been a vast difference in the results of the two men taking the shots. Today’s starter Keatley has hit 6 from 11 and with Hanrahan having kicked 14 of 15 the ex-Connacht man will be under pressure.