HEINEKEN CUP: ONE OF the marquee games of the club season will be without its biggest star. Leinster are resigned to Brian O'Driscoll sitting out next Saturday's historic Heineken Cup meeting with Saracens at Wembley – and it will disappoint the player himself hugely that he won't play at the shrine of English football.

Although a definitive verdict on his pulled hamstring won’t be made until today, the likelihood is the pulled hamstring which O’Driscoll sustained in the 38-22 win over Racing-Metro at the RDS will also rule him out of Leinster’s subsequent Magners League games away to Connacht and at home to Edinburgh, though he would have been rested for at least the latter fixture anyway.

If the prognosis of a two- or three-week absence proves correct, O’Driscoll should recover in time to lead out Ireland against South Africa at the Aviva Stadium four weeks’ hence, albeit without being as match primed as he and the Ireland management would have liked.

“We don’t know for sure but I don’t think it’s going to be as bad as we first feared,” said Joe Schmidt yesterday. “Because when I first saw him come off I thought it was four to six weeks straight away. He might only be out for two or three weeks, maybe four weeks, although this is still only an estimate at the moment. We’ll do some more tests tomorrow and get a clearer picture.”

It will be an acute regret for O’Driscoll to miss out a once-in-a-career opportunity to play at Wembley.

“As much as he was delighted that we managed to get a win, individually he was really disappointed because he is really keen to see the job through.”

Saracens will also be fighting for their Euro lives and Schmidt saw them take the game to his old team Clermont Auvergne in losing 25-10 at Stade Marcel Michelin.

“Saracens had every chance to win that. They played really expansively, almost in a Clermont sort of fashion against Clermont, and it almost came off for them. If Alex Goode had held on to the ball going across the line and Houggard had kicked a few more goals they certainly had field position and enough possession to put Clermont away, and Clermont were lucky to score with the last play of the game.”

Schmidt is “hopeful that Leo (Cullen) might be considered, and if not this week then maybe the week after. Shane Jennings took a knock on the knee but they’re just bumps and bruises”.

Victory by 12-11 for Biarritz in Bath yesterday sets up Ulster’s trek to Basque country next Sunday nicely. Bonus points of varying hues for all three Irish provinces in the Heineken Cup could all ultimately prove significant – whatever about Connacht’s defeat to Cavalieri Estra.

Furthermore, after losing three players in the fall-out from each of their previous two games, Tony McGahan could at least console himself that there was “nothing serious” to report on the medical front in light of their 23-17 defeat to London Irish, while there was also a bonus point in a typically defiant and often dominant second-half recovery.

“I think the nature of this group is that any point you can gather away from home is extremely important,” said the Munster coach. “History shows that if you can fight out the away games and being the competitive pool that it is, you really need to be winning your home games but come away with a minimum of a losing bonus point to get out of the pool.”

McGahan admitted that “we were extremely disappointed” with Munster’s first-half performance. In particular, he lamented Munster’s discipline, and added: “We tried to play too much rugby at times without gathering a platform to mount a challenge.

“We were running up dead alleys there at times in the first half. They played smart, they didn’t play anything in their back 50, while we felt compelled to play in that bottom third up to half-way and we were pushing the envelope at times.”

Still looking like a work in progress, Munster remain committed to this approach. “We’re gathering lots of metres with the way we’re playing, and I thought we showed a better balance around the ruck in the second half, a little bit smarter kicking game, which certainly contributed to getting back in the game.”

The defeat has left them with little or no elbow room as the Munster coach conceded; Toulon and yer man Wilkinson come calling to Thomond Park next Saturday. “That’s the nature of the competition. You go down in round one and all of a sudden you’re back at home and there’s going to be a lot of pressure. The way this group is, with every home game there is a lot of pressure on the home team to get a result. You saw the result from Toulon, 19-14 against the Ospreys, a try in the last bit to get them over the line. You can certainly take yourself out of the running early on in the race, and that adds to the excitement and to the pressure, and that’s why it’s a great competition.”

Munster are in must-win Euro mode but then again, they have been here before.