Looking depleted ahead of their Champions Cup semi-final clash with Saracens on Saturday afternoon, Alan Quinlan has stressed the importance of Munster's ability to frustrate their English opponents.
With Joey Carbery absent and Keith Earls dropping out on Friday morning, the former Munster man Quinlan believes a dearth of attacking quality leaves the Irish province with few options.
"For Munster to have any chance they've got to frustrate Saracens," Quinlan stated on Friday's OTB AM, "which is very tough to do."
"[Saracens] have so much power and so much quality throughout their team.
"What's been good from this year is [Munster's] defence, they've been the best defensive side in the pool stages, so they've got to try and stay really, really connected in the defence.
"They've got to frustrate Saracens and maybe win a turnover or two from Tadhg Beirne, from [CJ] Stander, from [Peter] O'Mahony, and get some energy and lifts out of that.
"Play in the right areas and hope they can force Saracens into a real dog-fight and bring the intensity level up to a place that Saracens may not be used to going.
"Munster just have to be really, really efficient."
Assessing Munster's opponents, Quinlan did not shy away from the impressive outfit the Irish side will be up against.
"[Saracens] are used to being the dominant side in most games they play," Quinlan noted, "they've only lost five games this season and some of those were in the Premiership when they were missing a number of their international."
"They don't tend to lose games with their full-strength side."
With Leinster set to take on Toulouse in the alternate Champions Cup semi-final on Sunday afternoon, Munster and Saracens will kick-off at 3:00pm on Saturday.
