Rory Scannell hopes long year with Munster isn’t over just yet

The mind has always been willing for more rugby but sometimes in this long season the body screams at Rory Scannell to tell him enough is enough.

Munster’s inside centre will today lace up his boots for the 26th time in the province’s 30th game of the season as they welcome Edinburgh to Thomond Park for a Guinness PRO14 semi-final qualifier that Scannell hopes will not be his last action of a long campaign.

Last Saturday’s final league game of the regular season, at home to Ulster, marked a rare weekend off for the 24-year-old, respite after a run of games that began against Edinburgh at Murrayfield on March 16 and took in the Scarlets, that epic win over Toulon, a two-game tour to South Africa and the heartache of a Champions Cup semi-final exit at the hands of Racing 92 in Bordeaux.