Sunday start will help clear qualification picture for Munster

They call it European rugby’s graveyard shift, but such are the myriad permutations surrounding Heineken Cup qualification this week, that kicking off at 12.30pm on Sunday could well suit Munster down to the ground.

While Leinster, needing a victory over Ospreys at the RDS to win Pool 1, get the ball rolling on Friday, it will be almost 48 hours before they learn their quarter-final opponents — assuming they beat the Welsh region in Dublin, of course.

Munster, on the other hand, will kick off at Thomond Park on Sunday afternoon with a fair indication of whether they will be playing their last-eight knockout tie on the weekend of April 4/5/6 back in Limerick or further afield.

The fate of last season’s semi-finalists could well be determined by events on Saturday at Scotstoun Stadium, where Glasgow will face defending champions Toulon.

The French side have already sewn up Pool 2 and while they will be anxious to secure a home draw for the last eight, their trip to Scotland represents the most likely upset this weekend among the prospective quarter-finalists.

Of the pool leaders, Toulouse look bankers to get a maximum five points with a bonus-point victory at winless Zebre, while last season’s runners-up Clermont Auvergne should get at least four points with a win over Racing Metro in their Stade Marcel Michelin stronghold while three-time champions Leinster will be odds-on to defeat struggling Ospreys.

Both Leicester Tigers and Ulster have already qualified from Pool 5 but their meeting at Welford Road on Saturday could carry heavy significance for the way the draw pans out. A win for Leicester would see them attain second seeding at least on 24 or 25 points, relegating Ulster to seventh seeds as best runners-up, most likely just ahead of Saracens, who can nail down the eighth and final spot with a home win over Connacht.

An away win for Mark Anscombe’s Ulster, though, would see the Irish province top the seedings on 26 or 27 points, leaving the Tigers as best runners-up.

If Toulon win with a bonus point and Ulster fail to beat Leicester, the champions would top the seedings while the worst a win would leave Jonny Wilkinson’s outfit would be second in the rankings.

A Toulouse maximum in Italy would leave them on 24 points, while a bonus-point win over Racing would also put Clermont on 24, one more than Munster can achieve with a bonus-point win of their own.

That leaves Munster’s best hope of a home draw lying in a defeat for Toulon in Glasgow, which would send the Frenchmen down to as low as sixth in the seedings.

All of this speculation comes with the caveat that the number of tries scored will be counted should teams finish level on points. Ulster lead the way going into the weekend with 16, with Toulon and Toulouse having scored 15 apiece, Munster and Clermont on 13 and Leinster on 11 but a try-fest for any of them could radically alter the landscape, as could losing bonus points or the odd shock the Heineken Cup can always be relied upon to produce.

As Munster captain Peter O’Mahony suggests elsewhere on these pages, you just never can tell. Yet with only Clermont following Munster in the weekend’s schedule, O’Mahony’s side should at least have a much clearer picture of what will be required than arch-rivals Leinster will enjoy when they get the round-six rollercoaster underway on Friday night in Dublin.