"The Connacht game is probably bigger than the Leinster one in terms of qualifying for Europe next year, " said Kidney. "We don't really want to get into a dilemma whereby if we're ahead of a Scottish and a Welsh team, that we're looking for players to play a 24th place play-off because Ireland are off playing a match in Argentina. Connacht were pretty unlucky not to get something out of their game against Ulster and this is a huge game for them. Qualification for Europe next year is their main goal now so this is another cup final situation we're going into."

Kidney's point about any potential play-off game against the third best Italian team is an interesting one, but what he neglects to say is that Munster could be in the quite unbelievable position of playing in a Heineken Cup final one weekend, and then having to qualify for next year's tournament through a play-off one week later.

At present, the European champions sit three points ahead of their neighbours, and a win today would stretch that to gap to at least seven.

With a margin like that in existence, you just can't see Munster slipping up over the rest of the season, even if they're going to be without their internationals for a minimum of two Magners League games between now and the end of the Six Nations.

Not that a victory against Connacht is anyway guaranteed. Playing two games in four days is far from easy, and with five international forwards . . . Marcus Horan, Jerry Flannery, Mick O'Driscoll, Anthony Foley and Alan Quinlan . . . currently unavailable for one reason or another, it's not as though Munster will be able to rest too many of their front liners. On the other hand, Kidney has the resources to change his backline around, and it's likely that Christian Cullen will replace Shaun Payne at full-back, with Lifeimi Mafi and Tomas O'Leary also in contention for starting spots.

Connacht, meanwhile, have the benefit of an extra day's rest and should field something close to their first choice starting 15 this afternoon.

Their performance at Ravenhill on Tuesday will give them some confidence but Munster appear to be in a pretty definite grove at the moment and it's going to take something pretty special to shift them out of it.

They won't say it out loud, but if Connacht can scrape a bonus point from this one, they'll view it as a successful day at the office.

CONNACHT D Riordan; D Yapp, P Warwick, G Williams, K Matthews; M McHugh, C Keane; B Wilkinson, J Fogarty (c), S Knoop/B Sturgess, D Gannon, A Farley, J Muldoon, R O"sa, C Rigney MUNSTER C Cullen; T O'Leary, B Murphy, L Ma", S Payne; J Manning, P Stringer; D Hurley, F Sheahan, F Pucciariello, D O'Callaghan, C Wyatt, J O'Sullivan, D Wallace, J Coughlan MAGNERS LEAGUE CONNACHT vMUNSTER Sportsground, 4.00 Referee D Keane (IRFU)