Ronan O'Gara: Toulouse will come to Dublin locked and loaded but Munster's red wall of noise can be telling 

The sod is equally good in Lansdowne Road as it is in Thomond, the posts are the same width and now the stands will be heaving with red. It puts a lot of things back in the plus column for Munster lads

GOOD OLD DAYS: Munster's Ronan O'Gara, cheered on by a sea of red, crosses the line to score his side's second try in the 2006 Heineken Cup semi-final win over Leinster at Lansdowne Road.

YOU might detect a stadium-based thread in this week’s dispatch. I would love to say it is a deliberate theme, but who am I kidding?

I will have a perfect vantage point Saturday night to examine Toulouse’s credentials ahead of their visit to Dublin to face Munster a week tomorrow. La Rochelle meet the reigning European champions on French prime time television at 9.05 (8.05 Irish time) with the game switched to Le Stadium in Toulouse for an expanded capacity.