The first opportunity to have a crack at the European champions seems enough this week to wind Munster up tightly.
Few in Limerick need to go looking for motivation. Because of last Saturday in Bilbao incentive has fallen on their laps as a ready-made package. Leinster hubris, aristocrats again. Munster can easily work with that material.
And while there is no sign of desperation in Peter O’Mahony’s voice, there is a growing hunger within Munster. Too many knockout phases, not enough silver. For certain teams and certain players like O’Mahony, who are hard on themselves, that can begin to grate.
“It’s got to be a challenge. You’ve got to bring it on. If you’re sitting at home worrying about going somewhere at the weekend, you’re in the wrong business.
“Leinster are the team you want to be measuring yourself off. Everyone is jealous. Everyone wants to be like you. Every club in Europe now wants to be like Leinster; wants to be where Leinster are. It’s 100 per cent deserved.”
But the 28-year-old, who has played 106 times for the province, has never once played in the RDS Arena. It seems odd that at this seasoned stage of his career he has never walked the stables and yards of the show grounds.
His sphere of influence has always been in the bigger head-to-head meetings in Aviva Stadium. So far that has excluded him from the close-in scrutiny of Leinster fans in Ballsbridge.
Ever the competitor, that aspect of the weekend meeting is less a nervous addition to the day than further leverage for his defiant nature.
“It’s a nice one to be the first team to challenge them,” he says. “I’ve never played in the RDS...somewhere that I’ve actually never played. I’ve heard a lot about it, watched a lot of rugby there. Obviously a superb venue and an intimate one.”
Dropped a gear
There is a narrative in the questioning today that could make a less experienced voice than O’Mahony become angry. It is that somewhere along the road Munster have dropped a gear and haven’t found it; that there is a gap that has opened up between the provinces, and Munster are desperately trying to bridge it.
In that conversation Munster are starting at a point some way behind the home side on Saturday . But O’Mahony has been around too long to buy it.
He says comparing the teams is not unfair. But a week is a long time in rugby, especially to the back drop of Leinster’s emotional over-spill in Spain, the physical cost of a brutally physical final and the injuries. O’Mahony expects to meet a refreshed Leinster team, not one limping forward after minor refurbishment.
“That’s not what we’re going to be talking about during the week,” he says of Munster playing catch-up. “We’ve a game plan, we’ve a structure, we’ll go out and play it.
“I don’t want people saying after the weekend: ‘ah, Munster, to be fair, aren’t far off Leinster’. That’s not what I want. I want people saying Munster played well. That’s what I want to hear. I don’t want to hear ‘they’re close enough’.”
“One hundred per cent, it is difficult. Don’t get me wrong,” he says of a Leinster come-down after Racing and getting up again for a repeat against Munster on Saturday. How to manage the energy and attitude, how to conserve it and then switch it back on to championship winning levels for 80 more minutes. How to make Leinster less man and more machine.
Difficult weeks
“The amount of energy, ya know,” he says. “You get back even to that double-header in the middle of the Champions Cup pool stages or the way it goes two, two, two. They’re difficult weeks.
“When you finish those you’re done for a few days, and it is a difficult thing to do, mentally, emotionally.
“Again...this is a team that doesn’t accept guys not performing in training because they won something last week. This is the level it is at. They will be the exact same come Saturday.”
Last week Leinster were the best in Europe. Perhaps in the past they would still be feeling they are the best in Europe this week. But O’Mahony can see from the way they adapted and played a dour outcome-driven game that they have evolved. There’s a new realism.
“They seemed very controlled, very processed, never panicked. Knew that their fitness was going to stay for 80 minutes. I thought it was a very professional performance.”
Now the page has turned. Munster know it is back to zero.
