It's almost as simple win or go home for Munster tomorrow night.
Technically, in eighth in the table, Munster could lose to Benetton and still qualify for BKT URC play-offs and next season’s Investec Champions Cup.
They would need ninth-place Cardiff and tenth-place Edinburgh to lose to Stormers away and Ulster at home, respectively.
The South Africans can’t go higher than fifth but could slip down, while Ulster are out of the running.
Ian Costello’s squad won’t have spent much time on the scenario where they scrape into the post-season with a losing bonus point.
So building up Friday night’s sold-out showdown as a knock-out game, where Munster revel, is only natural.
"We said there's no tomorrow so it's all eyes on this weekend and we haven't looked past it, to be honest," centre Tom Farrell told RTÉ Sport.
"We're in a fortunate position that it is in our hands, so we're the only ones who can do that right now on Friday night.
"At least we're in a lucky position to be able to put our game out there."
Winners in 2006 and 2008, Munster are sailing perilously close to a first ever season outside of the Champions Cup, a possibility that Farrell says Munster are not focussing on, despite the massive repercussions of failing to get into the elite tournament.
"We've haven't really given it too much external pressure, we know the consequences that are there but we haven't really focused on them too much, we've literally focused on what we can control within our game," said the 31-year-old former Connacht and London Irish back.
"We feel if we do put that out on the pitch that it will give us a really good shot of getting a victory on Friday."
Farrell is not really comfortable answering questions about his own form, but the Munster man's consistency in an inconsistent season is one of the main reasons the team are still in the hunt.
He is the URC’s top try-score with nine and has most carries (223), offloads (40), post-contact metres (217), while he’s second in defenders beaten (58).
Two of his tries came against Ulster in last weekend’s 38-20 win.
Farrell said: "[It's] probably just getting that continuity in my game, playing week on week allows me to get a bit of a roll on and you get familiar with different combinations coming around and players in the backline getting back to full fitness, which allows you to get that bit more continuity in the team's backline and a bit more of a settled look to it.
"As a team we'd like to think we're coming together at the right time.
"There was passages of play in the Ulster game where we did click well but we need to do it for longer passages and a more complete performance for the 80 minutes.
"Because we believe the game this week is going to be another step up in intensity, we're playing the guts of an international team so we're fully aware of it."
Benetton are ahead of Munster in the table thanks to beating champions Glasgow 33-7 last weekend.
Farrell knows the Italians, who have lost all previous four games at Musgrave Park and haven’t won in Ireland since 2018, will come all guns blazing, and has been particulary impressed with their international centre pairing of Juan Ignacio Brex and Tommaso Menoncello (below).
He said: "They can play on the line and release late passes, they also have that power where they can beat a man in a one-on-one tackle if your tackle entry isn't correct, they have that ability to run through you or around you.
"Either way they're very dangerous in attack and then in their defensive game they have quite a good understanding because they've played with each other so much now and they're so familiar with each other, they make good defensive reads and they're a big, big part of their team.
"We've talked about [Benetton’s] phase play, their counter-attack and their ability to keep the ball alive so for us it's just about making sure we're squeaky clean in our defence and working in threes and fives just to be able to shut them down."
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