Peter O’Mahony makes grand entrance

As if biggest game of the weekend needed any further spice, Munster head into the Aviva Stadium cauldron to face their fiercest rivals with the abrasive presence of captain Peter O’Mahony.

After just 20 minutes of game time in his locker following a year on the sidelines with a knee injury he suffered against France at the 2015 World Cup, director of rugby Rassie Erasmus has restored O’Mahony to the starting line-up to face Leinster and provide an expected crowd of 41,000 with the spectacle of two sets of Irish Test back rows going hammer and tongs at one another.

The expectation had been that O’Mahony’s return to full match fitness would be less dramatic and he would be sprung from the bench in the pair’s first interprovincial clash of the Guinness PRO12 campaign to continue the groundwork initiated by the flanker’s entrance for the final quarter of Munster’s facile victory over Zebre a week ago in Limerick, his appearance in red since May 23, 2015.