Donal Lenian admits that losing Peter O’Mahony to injury would be a huge blow to Munster, but he insists that they have the replacements to deal with his loss.
Inspirational back-row O’Mahony is only rated as 50-50 to make the province’s crunch Heineken Champions Cup Pool 2 clash with Exeter Chiefs at Thomond Park.
He picked up a rib injury in the win over Gloucester last week, but this didn’t stop his team securing a bonus point win to leave them on the verge of topping the group and possibly earning a home quarter-final.
Former Ireland captian Lenihan would prefer to see O’Mahony in the team, but says that they will cope without him.
"In terms of systems, particularly from a line-out point of view, bringing Billy Holland into the second row and moving Tadgh Beirne into the back-row is probably the most seamless change," he said, speaking to RTÉ Game On.
"Exeter have a really big pack, a lot of Munster players admitted after the draw in Sandy Park that their scrum was the best they have faced for a long time, so it’s going to be a huge ask from that point of view. That’s why I think Johann van Graan will want to keep his front five as strong a possible.
"Peter O’Mahony got injured in that one period of sustained attack Gloucester had just after half-time when Munster defended incredibly for ten minutes, it was inevitable that Exeter would score.
"What you didn’t see on television was he took a blow to the ribs early on in that onslaught, stayed on, put in a few more tackles and probably did even more damage.
"He’ll be a loss to Munster in terms of his presence as much as anything else he brings to the game. He’s probably playing his best rugby, but at least the move they made on Friday night, with Billy Holland coming into the second row and Tadhg Beirne moving seamlessly into the backrow, that’s an option they’ll look at again.
"You’d never want to go out without Peter O’Mahony, he has been such an integral part of Munster rugby for a decade now; he’d be a huge loss."
Lenihan is delighted with the progress of all four Irish provinces, with Leinster and Munster on top of their Champions Cup pools and Ulster in second in theirs, along with Connacht on the verge of qualification to the knock-out stages of the Challenge cup
He said: "The key element here is all four provinces are in charge of their own destiny.
"I think all three Champions Cup teams are in a brilliant position to advance. It would be great if they could because there’s a feel-good factor around Irish rugby at the moment."
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