Peter O'Mahony: ‘There’s been days when we have been written off’

It is the nature of the beast that when rugby players delve into the memory banks of games past, it is the disappointments they reach first.

Not the tries scored or the heroic last-ditch tackle, but the momentum-changing knock-on or the costly defensive lapse.

So it is for Peter O’Mahony, yet the Munster captain has learned to embrace the negatives and use the pain in an effort to forge better moments. That is certainly the case this week as his injury-hit team prepares to welcome mighty Toulon to Thomond Park for Saturday’s Champions Cup quarter-final. Fear of revisiting those times of hurt will be motivating Munster, at least in part.