Munster, who have been through a cross-hemisphere, cross-continent odyssey over the last month, sharded into three separate pieces, will reunite tomorrow morning in their Limerick training centre.
They will do so on the back on two Heineken Champions Cup wins that leaves them in a good place to kick on when the tournament resumes in mid-January.
Despite the uncertainty, with seven games having been either cancelled or postponed due to the escalating Covid crisis, Johann van Graan says it’s worth fighting for.
"It’s a phenomenal competition to be a part of," he said following their 19-13 win over Castres on Saturday.
"Obviously, Munster have a rich history in this competition and as we said in the changing room we’re fortunate just to play tonight.
"If you look at all the fixtures, there’s postponed, postponed, postponed, and only one game [Sunday], Leicester versus Connacht.
"So, it’s not great for the competition but that’s the world that we currently live in and hopefully by wherever we get to, April, for all teams involved we can get a good product and everybody is very, very proud to play in this Champions Cup.
"From a mental and a human perspective, it will be brilliant to have the guys back.
"There’s some coaches, some staff, some players not here, we haven’t seen each other for a very long time.
"The last few weeks have taken a big emotional toll and just the human side of it, to hopefully be all together in the high-performance centre on Tuesday will be good for everybody to meet each other.
"At the end of the day, this is a team sport and we’re a proud club in terms of how we look after its people and Munster have looked after its people very well over the last few weeks.
"It’s important that we get to Tuesday morning and hopefully we’ll all be in a room together and can’t wait for that."
The fact that it’s Leinster, whose game against Montpellier on Friday was cancelled, that are next up in a St Stephen’s Day United Rugby Championship derby, will help to focus the mind. But there’s still a job at hand to decompress after their ordeal.
The South African, who will depart for Bath at the end of the season, outlined the plan for the coming week - the impact of new Covid restrictions, including an 8pm curfew notwithstanding.
"We’ll finish our training on the morning of Christmas Eve," he explained.
"From my point of view in the last five years family is incredibly important so I want guys to go to their homes, to their families, spend Christmas Eve there, spend Christmas Day there.
"We play at 7.35pm on the 26th, the players have done this many, many times, so the most important thing is to spend time over Christmas with your family. We’ll rejoin on the Sunday and then it’s a great event to play Leinster.
"Some guys that will play next Sunday wouldn’t have played for a very long time. We’re going to keep rotating the squad, we’ve got to get some guys back onto the pitch.
"There are six games left in this block so yes, it’s a different challenge.
"We haven’t been together, the three groups, but we’ve got Christmas Eve plus Christmas Day leading into a game and then it’s Munster versus Leinster, which is always a massive day in our calendar.
"I’ve said it before, that’s brilliant for Irish rugby.
"Unfortunately, we won’t have a packed and a sold-out Thomond Park but that’s currently the way life works and everybody in rugby is in this together and hopefully we’ll get through on the other side."
