Tommy O’Donnell wants Munster to draw on big-match experience

Tommy O’Donnell has boiled tomorrow night’s Guinness Pro12 showdown with Edinburgh in Cork down to its essence: Take what the visitors have.

Just points difference separates the sides in the league table but with two games left in the campaign and the Scottish club in sixth place with Munster in seventh, it might as well be a chasm. Sixth place at season’s end means Champions Cup rugby for 2016-17 and mixing it with the big boys in Europe. Seventh place brings the evening of May 7 and the potential itinerary for the Challenge Cup could feature Siberia or, as Brian O’Driscoll has helpfully reminded the southern province, Bucharest.

So having lost successive derbies to Leinster and Connacht, getting their act together by beating Edinburgh at Musgrave Park will put Paris, Leicester, or Toulon back on the schedule for O’Donnell and his teammates heading into a last-day Thomond Park clash with Scarlets eight days later.

“At the moment, they’re ahead of us on points difference,” O’Donnell said of the Scots. “They have what we want so we need to go out with that mentality that at the moment they’re the ones that are ahead of us and we have to go out and attack them.”

Playing for sixth place is not the high-stakes game Munster have been used to, but O’Donnell believes those stress-filled scenarios in the knockout stages of both European and league competition will have to stand to his team in less familiar circumstances.

“We have played in high-pressure games before and there may be one or two faces less (in the Munster squad). But there is a lot of experience in this team and we need to have the confidence from when we have produced on big days. There are probably not trophies and high places at stake but it is the same game, it’s the same players and we need to back each other and keep playing to the end.”

Munster may have wished for less ambitious opposition than Edinburgh, whose scrum is based on a Scotland Test front-row with Alasdair Dickinson, Ross Ford, and tighthead WP Nel as their cornerstone, and dynamic back-rowers with Six Nations standout John Hardie lining out at openside flanker in direct opposition to the Tipperary man.

“You’ll have to go toe to toe,” said O’Donnell. “We know exactly what they will bring in attack and defence. They have an excellent back-row, some great ball-carriers. WP Nel has been one of the best props in European rugby for the last few years. It’s exactly what you want, what you need. And if you come out the right side of it, you will feel a lot better for it, knowing you’ve come out on top against a good team.

“They’ve been building the ethos of how they want to play for the last two years. You can see it developing. From one to eight, they are all very good ball carriers. Then the backs can punch in midfield and when they reload they have a good few threats. So it is going to be a tough, down to the wire game. We are going to need all 23 men.”

And then some. O’Donnell is also hoping Musgrave Park will be packed to the rafters.

“There’s so much there to play for. It’s a crunch game. Sometimes when you play a team lower down the table, they might not come out. But because Europe is on the line, because the stakes are so high, in effect it’s like being in a group stage of a European Cup. That much is on the line. That’s one reason to come out.

“Obviously, there are two home games so even though it hasn’t been the best of seasons it would be great to finish on a high with two wins to qualify for Europe again.

“Musgrave is a great pitch and it allows a great brand of rugby to be played. With the new stands and shed, it allows for a great atmosphere and you can feel it coming out to the field. It’s just built for a good atmosphere if the crowd can come out and get behind us. Then if we can do our job, do what’s needed, whatever it takes, take penalties when they’re on, score tries when they come, whatever is needed. Fans respect that when they see you do what’s needed, that you’ve done whatever it takes.”