GRUDGEMENT DAY..

Munster ready to meet challenge of an angry and fully loaded Leinster side

- BY GARRY DOYLE

THERE are rugby matches and then there are occasions.

Munster versus Leinster, in the depths of winter, with Thomond Park packed to the rafters and Christmas barely unwrapped, has always belonged in the second category.

It doesn't need selling. It never has. But this one feels different again - not because of what Munster did in Croke Park in October but because of what they are now trying to become.

That 31-14 win under the grey Dublin sky landed like a thunderclap. Munster rattled Leinster, the standard-bearers of Irish rugby on a stage that magnified every collision.

For a province still adjusting to life without Peter O'Mahony, Conor Murray and Stephen Archer, it felt seismic.

But Clayton McMillan is not interested in living off echoes.

"This was a few sleeps ago now," he says, deliberately downplaying the significance.

"We enjoyed the occasion but it was a long time ago."

That tells you plenty about where Munster are under their new head coach.

The win in Croke Park was not the summit. It was the trailhead.

Munster go into tomorrow night's game sitting second in the URC table, with momentum, belief and a growing sense of identity. Leinster arrive with something sharper still - edge.

Since that October defeat, they have responded like champions do - five straight wins, four of them bonus-point demolitions, averaging over 30 points a night. If there was soul-searching in Dublin, it didn't last long.