Cardiff Blues 22 Munster 13

One week after our single match pre-season and without our Irish internationals, Barry Murphy, Trevor Halstead and a raft of other injured players Munster were beaten by a practically full strength Cardiff team in Wales. I know I'm trotting out excuses but if you're missing your full regular pack (and then some) and 4 or 5 quality backs like O'Gara, Stringer and Halstead you're going to struggle. Plus two of our better second string pack players are now first string pack players with Leinster (Hogan and Keogh). Mind you after they way we bullied Leinster in the HCup semi-final I can't begrudge them trying to stock up with Munster forwards.

An opportunity to blood some new talent is all the positive that you can take out of this (along with an opportunity for the likes of Cullen and Sheehan to get some much needed game time).

But it's going to be a long, hard September for this team minus all of the players at Camp Eddie O' Sullivan.

I just hope we have some (or all) of our Irish internationals back for the match against Ulster at the end of September at Musgrave Park.