Munster's Donncha O'Callaghan and Peter Stringer believe the side's experiences of near misses in the past will prove a huge advantage when they face Toulon on Sunday. The Irish Times reports.
"Time was when beating touring sides used to define them, but not any more. While scalping the Wallabies in November was nice, and leading the Magners League with daylight to spare is nicer still, were Munster to exit from the Heineken Cup tomorrow their season would be seen as abject failure.
"To a degree, this is unfair. No other team has ever reached the knock-out stages for a dozen years in a row. If, or more likely when, it comes to an end, this record is unlikely to ever be equalled. In that timespan even the mighty Leicester went out at the pool stages four times, while Toulouse came up short of the last eight on three occasions. No one has a divine right to a place in the last eight. Not even mighty Munster.
"Yet, were Munster eliminated tomorrow, much of the rest of the season would seem anti-climactic, beginning with what would amount to the unthinkable, a dead rubber against London Irish next Saturday at Thomond Park instead of one of those do-or-die Anglo-Irish showdowns in their Limerick citadel."
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