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Leinster face a hectic five-day turnaround as they look to close out their Heineken Cup pool next month.

The province face Castres in France on January 12th before hosting Ospreys on the 17th which leaves little preparation time.

The Irish Times' Gerry Thornley and ex-Munster back-row Alan Quinlan joined Ger in studio for Wednesday Night Rugby.

Thornley reckons that the schedule has put dent in Leinster's chances of progressing to the knockout stages:

"It means they become a target for other potential pool winners. They got the short end of the stick. They got the worst draw of all the potential pool winners. They're already ranked sixth of the pool winners and the odds of them now progressing have definitely decreased because of the draw."

But Quiglan believes that Leinster will top their pool and potentially earn a home draw despite the "physical challenge" they will face in such a short space of time. However, Quinlan feels Leinster need to develop more of a kicking game to counteract teams who try to stop them like Northampton did last week.

Quinlan believes his former team Munster have much to improve on despite being in touching distance of the knockout stages.

"Munster showed loads of endevour [against Perpignan] and loads of passion. But their execution in some of their delivery of passes and decision making...there were simple two on one passes not being made, tackles going over guys' shoulders and loose passes going into touch.

"There's been a lot of talk about Rob Penney and his gameplan but he can't control what's happening out on the field. That's the responsibility of the players and they know that."

But Thornley also emphasized the point that the Munster players he has interviewed all passionately believe in what Penney is trying to do and Thornley believes the balance in the team has looked better of late.

Thornley and Quinlan also looked ahead to the inter-provincial Rabo games during the festive period, discussed the latest contract situations involving Irish players and in the last Wednesday Night Rugby of the year they looked back on an interesting 2013 and looked ahead to potentially promising year for Joe Schmidt's Ireland in 2014. 

 

Main image: Leinster's Luke Fitzgerald is tackled by Northampton's George North ©INPHO/Billy Stickland