Alan Gaffney must be scratching Irish coach Eddie O’Sullivan off his Christmas card list at the moment as two of his best and in form players, Mike Mullins and David Wallace have been ruled out of the Munster match against Leinster on Friday, having suffered injuries while training with the Irish squad.



Mullin’s injury is the more serious of the two, with it looking like he could miss the next six weeks with his fractured jaw. Wallace looks like missing three weeks with a knee injury. On top of this Gaffney has lost Jeremy Staunton for six weeks after he underwent surgery on his groin.



With all these worries for Gaffney, he has brought Shaun Payne back into the side at full-back. John Kelly, Eddie Halvey and Jim Williams return to the starting line-up also.

Munster (v Leinster): Shaun Payne; John Kelly, Jason Jones-Hughes, Rob Henderson, Mossie Lawlor; Jason Holland, Eoin Reddan, Simon Kerr, James Blaney, Gordon McIlwham; Trevor Hogan, David Pusey; Stephen Keogh, Eddie Halvey, Jim Williams (capt)

Replacements: Jerry Flannery, Frank Roche, Peter Malone, Tom Hayes, Donal Sheehan, Frank Murphy, Martin McPhail, Conrad O’Sullivan.

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