Revived Munster lock Paul O'Connell is in bullish mood as his side aim to live up to their own high standards in the Heineken Cup quarter-finals this weekend. The Irish Indepdendent's David Kelly reports.
"Such is Paul O'Connell's exalted status in the global game, it seems that teams can apparently be undermined whether with or without his presence.
With: Against Scotland in Ireland's miserable Triple Crown challenge, the charge from former gilded members of the international fraternity was that O'Connell assumed too much responsibility and his performance suffered as a result.
"He was overly fatigued by the mental and physical travails of non-stop rugby, we were told, and presented himself too often for crash ball and attacked his targets with a lot less intensity than usual. After the often unbearable mental pressures wrought by assuming the Lions captaincy, so soon after Ireland's Grand Slam triumph, not to mention his captaincy of the Magners League-winning squad, O'Connell's often caricatured super-human powers were now facing inevitable diminution.
"Without: As Munster succumbed to a chastening home defeat to Leinster last weekend, we were suddenly demanded to accept that the opposite had now become the case. Munster missed their captain's dynamism, his decision-making and overall leadership. From dispensable to indispensable within a month? Little wonder he threatened to scoff at the underlying motive behind the question."
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