Twin incentives at play for ambitious Munster

The respect given by Johann van Graan towards Castres this week has been well deserved given their arrival in Limerick tomorrow as champions of France. Yet there is more than a hint of the heavyweight about Munster as they resume Heineken Champions Cup pool action at Thomond Park and not a little excitement about the way their evolving gameplan is starting to be executed.

Dogged, physical French opposition on a soggy December afternoon may not be the place to expect the sort of high-tempo, running rugby implemented by Munster on Musgrave Park’s artificial surface last weekend, when they put a mismatched Edinburgh side to the sword in the PRO14. Add to that Castres’ unfussy approach to the game which marks them as outliers in the Top14 landscape.