Friendship on hold for a day

For eight weeks they soldiered together through the ups and downs of a Six Nations campaign, working and training, eating, meeting and playing as a unit, brothers in arms.

On Saturday, though, the bonds will break, the Ireland tracksuits discarded to reveal provincial colours.

It is always special when Leinster and Munster face each other and this weekend’s clash at Aviva Stadium promises to be more fearsome than most as the RaboDirect Pro12 defending champions and league leaders host southern neighbours with an eye on grabbing top spot.

Facing mates in near-Test intensity might not be everybody’s preference, but as far as Munster captain Peter O’Mahony is concerned, he would rather be rucking against friends than foes.

“It’s mad. Ten weeks together, or whatever it was, you’re living in each other’s pockets and all of a sudden 10 days or two weeks apart and you’re suddenly the other side of the whitewash and you’re face to face in the heat of battle,” O’Mahony said.

“It’s probably easier [to square up], although perhaps it works both ways. It’s harder in some ways but it’s probably easier because of the repercussions of the banter and the piss-taking that’s going to follow on from it.

“Obviously it’s a huge occasion for both teams and especially leading into the following week [of Heineken Cup quarter-finals]. There’s always a huge amount riding on it and it’s probably a bit easier looking across at the fella you know that little bit more.”

A Six Nations campaign is sure to strengthen bonds, some of which were already strong. O’Mahony one of a number of young Six Nations winners in Paris almost a fortnight ago, including fellow Munster man Conor Murray and Leinster’s Jack McGrath, Ian Madigan and Dave Kearney, who have played together since Ireland U20 level.

“Every camp you go in, you become better friends. I’ve some great friends from our Irish U20s team we’ve gone through, or even some of our schools’ team. I think there were six of us who travelled to Paris, which is a pretty good number, that I’d be very close to. But every camp you go into, you build better bonds and better friends.

Sparks regularly fly in these league matches, often cited by players as the most physically intense of their seasons, making those of us on the outside wonder how it is that the closer they are the more confrontational they become on the pitch for 80 minutes.

“It’s a huge group of unbelievably competitive fellas, that’s the only way to explain that,” O’Mahony said. “Everyone, whether I’m training with Ireland or Munster, wants to win and that probably makes it that little bit more special when you’re playing against each other and you’ve bragging rights for afterwards.”

The derby mentality is a difficult thing to escape, though, even for professional athletes and O’Mahony echoes a theme of Ireland’s successful preparations for the Six Nations under Joe Schmidt when getting the detail right early in the build-up allows for the passion and natural instinct to take over on match day.

“I think the emotion takes care of itself there. It’s about technically getting it right during the week. I’m sure they’ll be saying the same. Obviously they’ve had a huge amount of big games over the last couple of weeks, a good chunk of them, but from our side of things and theirs I think emotion won’t be an issue”

Added to the mix for Munster is all the talk of his players needing to prove a point against a province that supplied the bulk of Ireland’s championship-winning squad to the exclusion of themselves. Unsurprisingly, O’Mahony does not want any distraction from the needs of the team. “Absolutely, yeah. It could be [a distraction], and we’re going to do our 100% best for it not to be. It’s not about any individual performance this weekend, it’s about the collective, and I’m sure they’ll be saying the same. It’s about a collective performance.

“You go out individually against a team like Leinster and you haven’t a hope, not a prayer. So we’ve got to be a collective forward pack, collective backs and a collective team on Saturday. We need collectively a better performance than what we showed last weekend against Treviso as well, so yeah, it needs to be a huge team performance this weekend.”