Ex-Ireland captain Keith Wood joined Off The Ball for Wednesday Night Rugby to talk about the mental barrier that Munster have when it comes to Leinster.

The southern province will take on the men in blue in the semi-final of the Pro14 for the third consecutive year on Friday, having lost both previous encounters.

In fact, Leo Cullen's men have beaten Munster in seven out of their last eight encounters, highlighting the difficulties they have faced in this derby in recent memory.

In a press conference earlier in the week, Munster’s forwards coach Graham Rowntree said he does not think that the past will have an effect on his side this weekend.

“It is knockout rugby against a team that had the luxury of resting guys at the weekend and they will have had a good hit out yesterday which we weren’t able to do,” Rowntree said.

“But we crack on with it. I am happy with where we are mentally and physically at the moment going into this game.

“We have played against them enough and previous form means nothing to me or this team, going into this game it means nothing.”

Wood agrees with Rowntree and believes that they do have what it takes to beat the four time Heineken Cup champs.

“It is huge for the history of Munster and the fact that they have a fairly large losing record against Leinster that they will want to rectify that, but they want to win silverware,” he said.

“Physically and mentally for this game there are no excuses [for Munster].

“You can talk about a five-day turnaround, and I hope nobody talks about it because that is just the reality of what they have to do.

“They need to go out and tinker with their game a little and change it to try and find a couple of more holes in Leinster’s defence.

“I think they need more in their armoury for Friday, but I think they have a good chance of upsetting Leinster’s dreams this year of a double.”

Wood knows the mental toll that a losing record against a team can have.

“I had some really horrendous records,” he said.

“I remember being in a press conference in I would say 97, where we had six new caps playing against the All Blacks.

“The first press conference on the Friday I said we probably had a 25-1 chance of beating them since we had never beaten them before and this was a young team.

“People were saying afterwards that that was very negative.

“But I was taking the one chance, I wasn’t being negative at all.

“We went out and we played, and we were pretty good in the first half.

“We fell away at the end of it, but we started to believe that actually that you could beat them.”

22 August 2020; Jordan Larmour of Leinster and Keith Earls of Munster contest a high ball during the Guinness PRO14 Round 14 match between Leinster and Munster at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. Photo by David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile

Wood mentioned that it is a mental hurdle that players need to get over in order to convince themselves that they can win.

“I can’t say that no player thinks about it,” he said, “and some players may get burdened by it, but I can’t say that you can look at a team and say that they’re burdened by it.

“The team has to go into every game and say ‘yeah, they’re a better team than we are, maybe, on their day they can be better than we are.

“Our job is to make certain that they’re not on their day, that we can destabilise them wherever we possibly can.

“That we take every chance that we can, that we have that sense of discipline that you have to have to go out and win it.

“Sometimes all you have is to take every chance and keep your discipline and that can be enough.”

But Wood knows that it will take a lot for the men in red to overcome the defending champs on Friday.

How Munster can beat Leinster

The southern province have begun playing with greater intensity and made a few changes since the lockdown that Wood has noticed.

“There are subtle changes to Munster, they are playing a bit better from some of the stop-start earlier on in the season,” Wood said.

“It’s very hard to even discuss it in that fashion because they’ve only played two matches with it, but those two matches were to get to this match.”

Wood highlighted the key factors that he thinks Johann van Graan's men can use to move on to the final.

“I think [they] need to create more than [they] have done, and I’d like to see [them] play at a slightly faster tempo,” he said.

“There is a risk to that, because a higher tempo means your error rate goes up, that might open more opportunities for Leinster, but I think that’s the risk Munster have to take.”

Chris Cloete of Munster is tackled by Conor O'Brien and Jimmy O'Brien of Leinster during the Guinness PRO14 Round 9 match between Munster and Leinster at Thomond Park in Limerick. Photo by Diarmuid Greene/Sportsfile

He said that Munster will know that Leinster are the better team, but that does not make them unbeatable.

“There’s days when you know you’re playing against a better team, but you don’t go out with a view that you’re going to lose,” Woods said.

“You go out with a view to say, ‘what is there possible that I can turn into my favour or my team’s favour to make this be possible for us?’”

Wood brought up Leinster’s strength in depth, saying that it has made them the envy of every northern hemisphere team, but that he still thinks they can be beaten.

“I don’t think there’s such a huge gap between them.,” he said.

“Munster’s view is that they have to not give up easy scores.

“The one critical difference that I saw two weeks ago was that it was very hard for Munster to score, and it was easier for Leinster to score.

“Munster have to be really eager in defence, they have to let nothing go through, no easy scores, no easy penalties.”

Regardless of the score line, Wood believes that the match will be an intense derby.

“I think it is going to be enthralling. I think it is set up as one of those great games,” he said.

“Will it damage Munster if they don’t get there? I think it will, but I think they’ll get over it to try and do it again next year.”

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