Home sweet home at last. After seven games this season, Munster finally get to apply the Thomond factor for the first time and if absence makes the heart grow fonder it should be quite a factor.

All the more so as Munster, by their own admission, face a win-or-bust scenario. "If we're to have any chance of progressing to the play-offs," said co-coach Niall O'Donovan, "then we must win this game. In fact, we'll have to win all our home games."

Munster folk surely won't stand for Leinster outdoing them and O'Donovan knows the crowd could play a major factor. "Hopefully they'll not only turn up in big numbers but they'll get behind the team right from the start. Even through the crowds weren't huge at Harlequins and Cardiff, to have 3,000 to 4,000 all cheering against you makes that little bit of difference."

No less than Bourgoin, beaten only once at home in four years, Munster are a different proposition on familiar territory and are unbeaten at home in European fare, with the scalps of Swansea, Milan and Wasps already on their belts.

Thus a slight reversion to more customary home tactics may apply. The suggestion that Killian Keane might launch one of his testing Garryowens early on induced a loud laugh from O'Donovan. "Something to get the crowd involved like? We'll try a bit of everything I'm sure."

Hitherto, Munster have played some of the most progressive 15man running rugby by any of the Irish provinces but as O'Donovan is quick to retort: "It doesn't do any good if you don't win games."

In fact, the policy has yielded an impressive haul of eight tries and 63 points, with countless more try-scoring opportunities having been created, especially against Cardiff. What's let them down has been some of the worst defending by any Irish side, hence the concession of a dozen tries and 91 points.

"Our defence has been loose, and we've got to tighten up our first-time tackles. If we can improve on that it should make a big difference," said O'Donovan. "Against Cardiff we gift-wrapped them 21 points, and you can't expect to pull that back."

O'Donovan detected a similar flaw in Bourgoin's 45-7 defeat to Harlequins in that "they were out of the game after 20 minutes. You couldn't really judge them on that. They're a far better side than that. They're very well balanced, it's not that they're weak up front or in the backs."

Indeed, Bourgoin's result at the Stoop looks the most misleading in a conflicting formguide. Amateurishly, they only flew from France on the morning of the game and, accordingly, have rectified that by arriving in Shannon yesterday and having a run-out on Thomond.

Aside from changing their props, they have moved Patrice Favre to full-back after a rusty seasonal opener last week and have brought in 20-year-old junior Olympic sprinter David Ganin, with Yoann Bohu switching to midfield at the expense of 36year-old Gilles Cassagne. Altogether, it looks a more potent, younger back-line and if Munster are to open their account then they're going to have start putting their tackling necks on the line and, at the third time of asking, make a strong start. With some belated encouragement from the sidelines, they surely will.

Former Wallabies Jeff Miller and Tim Lane were yesterday appointed as assistant coaches to new Australian rugby coach Rod Macqueen.The appointments take in the 1999 World Cup, in line with the term given to Mulqueen, who last week replaced Greg Smith.Their appointments were described by the Australian Rugby Union (ARU) as a "generational change".Miller, Australian Sevens coach for the last two years, didn't apply for the job. He was urged by several senior Wallabies to consider the position and was approached by ARU managing director John O'Neill.Lane is a long-time backs coach who played 34 games for Queensland and was a Wallaby grand slam tourist of the United Kingdom in 1984.