The first couple of lines are as follows:

Get your motor runnin' Head out on the highway Lookin' for adventure And whatever comes our way The song is an adrenalin raiser and it kinda keeps going through my mind when things like the Heineken Cup come around. I'm sure most of the players involved think and feel the same way at the start of such a competition.

For Munster the last couple of lines are particularly pertinent:

Like a true nature's child We were born, born to be wild We can climb so high I never wanna die Last year the dream was finally achieved . . . it dies a bit if they don't defend the title.

They have a huge amount of work to do to continue living the dream. Who can challenge them?

During the summer I watched one of Gordon Ramsay's foodie programmes called The F-Word. It featured the famous east London delicacy of jellied eels, which have not surprisingly gone out of fashion. Jonathan Ross turned up out of nowhere on camera as Ramsay together with a sushi chef picked up a live eel. They forked the creature into a pincer just below the head . . . sliced open its stomach, gutted, filleted and beheaded the unfortunate fish. As its entrails were being binned Ramsay noticed that the tiny purple heart was still beating . . . Jonathan Ross picked it up and swallowed it whole.

Meanwhile the fish could only lie there and await his fate, no point in struggling or putting up a fight, the result would be the same. The whole scene was a bit like facing the Munster pack. They get you in the end. It's a bit like being slashed open by a fish knife and towards the end you have no heart left for the fight. Its how Munster win . . . it will be twice as hard this season. There is one team they won't be able to sushi though . . . Leicester are one of the few teams in Europe who can come to Thomond and win. If Munster don't annihilate up front they are vulnerable. Once again it looks like Munster will entertain an English club (Leicester) in January with everything riding on the result of the last game. My money is staying in my pocket.

Not as impossible as you might think to name a winner in this competition because the pool selections have become I think a little bit predictable.

It's easy to say who won't win it.

The Taffies have improved since their further consolidation but the Pimpernels, Dragnets, Blue Meanies and the Oblongs won't get out of their pools, neither will the Gunners or the Lamentable Reivers.

I don't fancy any of the English sides to get out of the pool stages either . . . with paradoxically Leicester being the side with the best chance . . .

assuming they beat Munster first off at Welford Road. The Premiership and the EDF Energy Cup (still up there with great competition names like the Fried Chicken League) take too much out of them . . . how do they focus on three competitions?

I do fancy all three Irish sides to do well including Ulster. Every year some selfappointed twat in the press pronounces that pool X is the 'pool of death'. Pool 5 which includes Ulster is this year's pool of death.

Sorry I don't see Hannibal Lecter, Vlad the Impaler or Attila the Hun lurking in the alleyway here. Ulster have beaten all of these sides in competition before . . . the Madejski and Stradeyvarious Park hold no fear for them.

None of those teams will relish going to Ravenhill. Ulster can qualify.

That said I can see the top four French sides, Biarritz, Stade Francais, Perpignan and Toulouse topping their groups as top seeds and gaining home advantage with only two sides seriously challenging them, Munster and Leinster.

Leinster just about on time seem to have hit form. Some people use the old cliche form is temporary, class is permanent to sum up an individual or team. From Leinster's perspective temperament is temporary, crass is permanent . . . particularly when it comes to semi-finals. You can't though discount Leinster's performance last week. Munster were certainly up for the game and yet were killed in emphatic style. Leinster's lineout and scrum are fixable . . . they were also fixable at most stages throughout the season last year.

To see them requiring season-saving surgery at the juncture of their first Heineken Cup match is perplexing. They are not stupid people who are in charge. They are acutely aware of the problem. They have, you would assume, tried to fix them and still haven't succeeded. Rule number one . . . win ball, look at quality later.

One of the reasons Leinster are so difficult to beat is the quality of their midfield . . . defensively D'Arcy and O'Driscoll are the best wrappers and scrapers in Europe. Leinster have put a high emphasis on rucking and counter rucking. It makes a defending pack's job far easier if they know that opposition backs won't have got much change in midfield, that they won't have gotten over the gain-line and also that the ball will have been slowed considerably so that they can take up their defensive alignment more coherently.

One of the most striking aspects of Leinster's recent display was the quality of presentation of the ball and speed of same. If this can be replicated Leinster will control games without dominating possession.

The addition of Chris Whitaker with Contepomi (in his final year) gives Leinster a huge advantage. But the perennial problem still exists . . . not enough axe murderers up front, particularly in the front row. Make a comparison with any of the top French props in the big four and. . . well you can't. In a game of power, control and aggression . . . particularly at the business end . . . you'll find as this competition runs further it's the mules who rule.

Leinster's back-line manoeuvres should get them out of the group . . . they have far too much invention for all their pool rivals if they can make it count. One of the things that struck me about Leinster's second try against Munster scored by Shane Horgan was the execution and concept were brilliant. Contepomi looping behind O'Driscoll as D'Arcy did a dummy crash . . . Contepomi took on the outside-centre and Hickie zoomed through on the perfectly-timed pass and he in turn turned his pass to Horgan to perfection on the outside.

Great try etc. What blew me away was Girvan Dempsey's line. The Leinster fullback, though unused, cut back against the grain on the inside . . . Munster had been outmanoeuvred on two counts . . . Dempsey could have scored if Hickie had chosen to pass inside to him. If they can do that against a team of Munster's undoubted defensive quality. . .

The timing of the draw is also favourable.

If they play well they could have 14/15 points by the half-way stage . . . temperament.

Munster only need to consult their muscle memory bank to see how it is done. The timing of the draw is tough . . . but that never really upset them too much before. I expect a close loss in Welford in a really friendly game and then five straight victories including a win in Bourgoin. Sure you know the rest yourselves . . . Thomond, frenzy, eaten whole etc. Born to be wild.