O’Donnell wins fitness battle but faces another fight to get shirt back

While his province goes into tomorrow night’s league game with Scarlets at Musgrave Park as leaders of the RaboDirect Pro12 on the back of a dramatic Heineken Cup win in Perpignan which leaves them top of Pool 6 with two games to play, O’Donnell is poised for just his second start of a season which had begun with high hopes.

The 26-year-old open side flanker enjoyed a breakout campaign in 2012-13, earning the Munster Player of the Year award for the season and parlaying that into his first Ireland Test caps against the USA and Canada over the summer.