A whisker away from Heineken European Cup success in 2000, cruelly denied at the semi-final stage last season through an officiating error, Munster embrace the 2001-2002 rugby season as the provincial standard bearers of Irish rugby. Their European odysseys tend to camouflage their domestic dominance.

At the beginning of last season they defied the belief that the departure of Keith Wood and Eddie Halvey and the mental baggage of losing to Northampton in the previous season's European Cup final would preclude a serious challenge in that competition.

Few will back against them this season. John Langford is returning, fellow Australian Jim Williams adds depth to backrow talent and there are the new faces: Paul O'Connell, Conor Mahony, Conrad O'Sullivan, Mossie Lawlor, Martin Cahill, Peter Malone, Denis Leamy, Frank Murphy will broaden the pool of young talent.

Coach Declan Kidney has long asserted that the players dictate the parameters of ambition for Munster. No one, however, would be foolish enough to dismiss the role of the management team led by Kidney and assisted by Niall O'Donovan and Jerry Holland.

Kidney started preparing for the new season on his return from Lille. "We looked at recruiting, strengthening the squad, organising contracts for players and I suppose I spent quite a while looking at videos of games to see if we had improved from the previous season and what improvements we could make."

The foot-and-mouth crisis which led to postponed Six Nations games coupled with the inaugural Celtic League has provided for an unbelievably congested fixture schedule in the early part of the season. Kidney points out: "Given the fixture schedule over the first five weeks, it will be a very unlucky player who doesn't get a run in that period."

Last season's lessons are still fresh in his mind and the IRFU's decision to offer full-time contracts to 30 players in each province will help Kidney to marshal his forces more sparingly.

"If you look at the (European Cup) semi-final we were without Alan Quinlan and David (Wallace) was just back. This season we will have good back-up and this will allow an opportunity to rest players without hopefully affecting the team's performance."

Kidney says he will take each tournament as it comes, refusing to downgrade any competition. "I can see the merits of each tournament and I certainly wouldn't be tempted to field 'weaker teams'. If you look closely, a team that doesn't get to the Celtic League quarter-finals won't have a match between November 4th and December 28th.

"They will then have an interprovincial, before going back into European competition for two matches against teams that will have been playing together right though that valley period for Irish provinces."