Picture this: you’ve been building up to a first trip outside your 5km zone for an age, only to be told on the eve of departure, with your bags packed and a full tank of petrol in the car, that you have to stay put.
n a desperate attempt to shake things up you decide to head out on your regular neighbourhood loop walk – but, rebelliously, you change the habit of a lockdown by completing it the other way around. Ultimately, though, you’ll see the same shapes and faces, just from a different angle and in a different order. It’s not much to get excited about.
The introduction of something new – new teams, new players, new styles of rugby – was the greatest pull that the Rainbow Cup had when it was first mooted.
Supporters were enthused by the prospect of seeing how the PRO12 sides would fare against their bulkier South African peers, World Cup winners included.
This may be the Rainbow Cup in name, but there is no pot of gold to be plundered at the end and the connection with the Rainbow Nation has become loose at best. We essentially have a PRO12 mini-league running in tandem with Super Rugby South Africa. It’s been a bumpy start to say the least.
There is no history, no coveted trophy and no fans. There is no expectation that this competition will light up the skies in technicolour, but there is an opportunity here too.
We can pick and moan at the turbulent start for the competition or we can try and take something from it. That’s the choice the teams will have too. As professionals, it would want to be the latter.
There should be enough sub-plots here to even pique the interest of the casual rugby fan – players fighting for Lions spots, places on international summer tours up for grabs and good old-fashioned local derbies for starters.
Throw in the three new law trials, the better weather and a freedom to play more heads-up rugby and there are enough ingredients to keep the palate interested.
There is still potential in this competition – it could even become something for players and supporters to actually enjoy.
Besides, what was the alternative? Pull up stumps for Munster and Connacht, let Leinster and Ulster finish out their European campaigns and wait to see if the Lions and the Ireland tours get the green light? That would have been worse again.
In normal times players might appreciate a longer off-season to let the bodies heal in sunnier climes, but they can’t go anywhere at the moment.
The Rainbow Cup may not entertain the masses but it should bring entertainment and relief to enough faces to make it worthwhile.
In hindsight you wouldn’t have compressed the PRO14 season and you could have run this in a true, knockout cup format – but we are where we are. In such unpredictable times we know all plans come with an asterisk.
There is still a trophy up for grabs and that should light a fire under a group of teams so used to seeing Leinster hog the silverware.
Leo Cullen’s side will be experimenting more than most in this competition and while they have the resources to successfully compete on two fronts, it does leave the door ajar.
Munster should need little motivation to get up for this. This is CJ Stander’s last chance to lift a trophy above his head in a red shirt; if that doesn’t focus minds around him little else will.
We won the second and final edition of the Celtic Cup with Munster – a straight knockout competition between the Celtic League teams – in 2005.
We beat Scarlets 27-16 in the final at Lansdowne Road in Alan Gaffney’s last game as head coach. It was great to send him off to the Wallabies on a high after a second-place finish in the Celtic League (to Ospreys) and a quarter-final exit in Europe (against Biarritz) in the weeks beforehand.
The win didn’t send tremors around European rugby but it meant something to us and it was part of our journey to bigger and better things.
Twelve months later we were crowned Heineken Cup champions for the first time. The Celtic Cup final win obviously wasn’t the deciding factor in us finally climbing the summit in Europe, but it did us no harm.
Munster’s focus today will be on stopping the rot against Leinster, but from a wider perspective guys like Joey Carbery, Jack O’Donoghue, Niall Scannell and Shane Daly will be looking to make a point in terms of the international picture.
Johann van Graan will also be looking to build depth over the coming weeks, particularly in the front-row. He will want to get a better sense of what some of the younger options – such as Keynan Knox and Roman Salanoa – can offer.
Everything will be on the line for Van Graan next season, so the more prepared he can be for it the better. The thought of another trip to Dublin to face Leinster may instinctively trigger widespread wincing in the south of the country but this is as close to a free shot as Munster will get at the RDS.
The pressure is largely off, so this is about going out there and showing what they can do.
From a Leinster perspective, Garry Ringrose, Caelan Doris and James Ryan – off the bench – just need to get a run-out ahead of La Rochelle next weekend while there are a number of interesting selection calls in the back-three and back-row that may be swayed by performances this evening.
And if none of that whets the appetite, we have the law trials and the inevitable confusion and consternation they will cause to look forward to over the coming weeks.
The captain’s challenge and the goal-line drop-out changes are welcome; they should help referees to get the big calls right and reward defences for moments of brilliance.
However, the captain’s challenge is missing a trick by not including the set-piece as an area that can be looked at. As it stands, only foul play can warrant a review of a lineout or scrum, so a crooked throw that leads to a game-changing score, such as Julien Marchand’s try for Toulouse against Munster earlier this month, cannot be queried under this change.
The trial for sendings-off will surely be the most controversial, assuming we see some red cards in the coming weeks. Player behaviour around tackle height and dangerous play has been slowly changing; to dilute the punishment of a red card by allowing a replacement to make it 15-a-side again 20 minutes after the offence clouds the message around foul play. It doesn’t make sense and is bound to cause problems.
If the rugby fails to sparkle, at least it will give us something to talk about.
