European Cup: The last video Munster players and management will want to watch this week will be the so-called "Miracle Match".

If anything, repeat showings would be a spur for Gloucester and, indeed, captain Jim Williams notes putting their 33-6 victory over the Cherry and Whites to video would merely serve as additional motivation for Saturday's visitors.

Imagine the motivational mileage Munster would generate if English opponents had dared to glorify a famous Heineken European Cup win at their expense by putting it on the video shelves. "Arrogant," would probably be the mildest adjective used.

Besides, any replays could only serve as a distraction and, psychologically, wouldn't be worth a point on Saturday.

"Yeah, I want all the peripheral things out of the way," admits Munster coach Alan Gaffney. "It's something that happened 12 months ago, that's finished. It won't be motivation for us. They've got the bit between their teeth. The pressure is back on us. Now we have to win at home."

At Thomond Park, of course, Munster have never failed to do so. Williams contends their record in Limerick is a significant boost for the players but, as Gaffney implies, it's also a huge carrot for Gloucester. "And they've got a side that can win anywhere. They can play strongly from one to 15."

In debunking the Miracle Match's relevance to Saturday, Williams has already predicted this game will be a tighter affair. The dynamics of this game are different too, and Gaffney highlights a prime example.

"When it did develop last year we had to keep the momentum going. For the first penalty goal Jimmy (Williams) took the scrum and under normal circumstances we would take that kick. But it wasn't my decision, it was Jimmy's decision. If Jimmy wants help he can ask me, but if he doesn't want help then it's his call."

The team will not be confirmed until tomorrow, but there are unlikely to be any changes from Saturday's 22-11 defeat at Kingsholm. Everybody is physically fit, save for Marcus Horan, whose recuperation from the back spasm he suffered at Kingsholm is not yet complete.

"Marcus trained this morning. He'll do part of the whole session and he won't this afternoon, and then everyone will train on Thursday. At this point in time there's no doubt about Marcus. It's just a question of us looking at it now and seeing if there are any changes, but I would suspect there won't be.

"I think Shaun (Payne) played pretty well at the weekend. Hoggy (Anthony Horgan) and JK (John Kelly) did a fairly good job on (James) Simpson-Daniel and (Marcel) Garvey considering the amount of ball they had. There's one or two things we could have done but they (Gloucester) played all right. They're not a shabby team. I know Wasps have been built up but I think this side (Gloucester) will go close to being the best side in England."

The personnel may not change, but Gaffney agrees Munster have a lot to do this week if they are to turn the tables again on Gloucester, and this time there's only a seven-day gap as opposed to a three-month break before the last rematch. Crucially, the emphasis has to be about the Munster performance, above and beyond the concept of winning, much less the more fanciful notion of scoring four tries for a bonus point.

"This week we just have to go through the process. We can't even look at the four tries - never mind the four tries and 27 points. We didn't even look at that last year. We have to get the process right and that's what we concentrated on today. We went upstairs and spent a bit more time on the video than we would normally do."

Hardly surprising given the ice-cold wind and rain outside Thomond Park, before a thunderstorm hit the afternoon workout.

Because of the logistical difficulties in having a squad based in Limerick and Cork, in effect Munster only have three sessions to get it right, two yesterday and one tomorrow.

To explain what he means by getting the process right, Gaffney cites the lineouts: "We've just got to make sure, from a specific lineout, what we want to achieve from that lineout, that two or three plays in advance we know what we want to do.

"Last week we didn't get that right at all. We were all over the shop and I would say that our success rate from our set-pieces last week would have been in the order of 20 per cent. We just didn't play the game the way we wanted to play it.

"I'm not trying to say this is like a game of chess, because it's not, but we'll have a particular play, as anyone would, off a particular lineout, and then we might have one or two things we do off that.

"But generally speaking, it's up to Rog (Ronan O'Gara) to determine what he wants to do. He's the ball player, he controls the game, but we've got some sort of feeling of where the players have got to be, and what they've got to do. I'm not trying to programme them into being robots.

"But we've got to give them some sort of semblance of what we're trying to do, and getting some of our structures and patterns right."

It didn't help their chances that Munster coughed up seven of their own lineouts, and struggled to impose themselves on the scrum as well. As Gaffney says, "the setpieces are a great place to attack from in rugby union these days, but we just weren't at the races last Saturday."

That's the collective. Individually too, players need to up their performance from last week.

"Players made some little errors and gave away some penalties which cost you in a game like that, particularly when you're chasing a bonus point. A couple of times it was a rush of blood - crazy stuff. We've got to be a lot cuter than we were at the weekend.

"We've just got to be a lot more accurate, and we've got to utilise the mental strength that we have, and we've got a fair bit of that. And if we get ourselves organised, I think we'll be okay."