It is a measure of the task facing Munster at the Aviva Stadium next Saturday that the Irish pack which started all three Tests against the All Blacks featured six Leinster players.

Whether all line-up for the 5.15pm kick-off on Saturday – ticket sales have topped the 40,000 mark – remains to be seen. Conceivably, the six Leinster ever-presents could be supplemented by Jason Jenkins and Jack Conan, yet far from regarding this challenge as daunting the recently promoted Munster forwards coach Andi Kyriacou described the prospect as “massively exciting”.

Acknowledging Leinster’s depth, quality and “great coaching team”, Kyriacou added: “We’re just so excited about going up and playing. We have got a great group of lads. The [Emerging Ireland] South Africa tour was massively beneficial for that group of lads who went out there.

“They’ve had a taste and they have come back and they really want to impose themselves on not just the team here, but the league and push themselves forward for selection nationally.”

The two Munster forwards who made up the rest of the Irish pack in the Test series against the All Blacks were Tadhg Beirne and Peter O’Mahony. The latter has led his province in each of his last four games, while Beirne (calf) is one of a quartet of players who have had to undergo scans arising from knocks in last Saturday’s bonus-point win over the Bulls before determining their availability for next Saturday.

The others are Stephen Archer (ankle), Edwin Edogbo (calf) and Craig Casey (groin). Mindful of Ireland’s November Tests, beginning with the Springboks a fortnight from next Saturday, Kyriacou implied that Beirne might not be risked against Leinster.

“We’ve just got to give him as much time as we can. I’m sure his body will let us know in good time. We obviously want him out playing for us but I feel that where we are at this time of year, rolling into the World Cup as well, we’ve got to give the lads as much of a chance as possible as well to go and play for Ireland.

“So we’ll take advice from the medical team and Tadhg’s body itself, and between those two they’ll let us know.”

As for the quartet’s availability against Leinster specifically, Kyriacou said: “We’ll see. I’ve got no idea. I’m sorry about that. I’d love to give you a headline or a story or something, but I don’t know. I definitely don’t know that. We’ll have to wait and see in terms of what the lads come back with.”

The experienced international trio of Keith Earls (thigh), Andrew Conway (knee) and Simon Zebo (calf) have all again been ruled out. Prop Roman Salanoa suffered a head injury in last Saturday’s final play against the Bulls and will undergo the return to play protocols, while the newly acquired centre Antoine Frisch is rehabbing a calf injury suffered on the Emerging Ireland tour.

This adds to a casualty list which also includes RG Snyman (knee), Jack Daly (knee), Alex Kendellen (head), Paddy Kelly (head) and Fineen Wycherley (shoulder).

Munster received a timely fillip with the 31-17 win over the Bulls in their first outing of the season on the new hybrid pitch at Thomond Park, not only in improving their URC position after losing three of their first four games, but also in producing their most complete performance of the season so far a week before facing the ultimate challenge.

Perhaps aware of what’s next, Kyriacou admitted that the sense of relief at their HPC this week has been tempered.

“We’ve definitely gone with a ‘We haven’t won anything, we haven’t won a World Cup’ kind of mentality. It’s been very ‘Let’s get back to business, let’s get back to work, there’s still loads of things we need to improve on’. The chances we are creating, both sides of the ball in terms of turnover opportunities, high pressure in defence and the way our maul is going, the way we are attacking and creating opportunities on edges, it’s all so encouraging, but there is still a lot of stuff we can layer on top of that.”

Munster’s performance was still far from perfect, and a few lineout wobbles must have concerned Kyriacou. The win was varnished with a classy display from Joey Carbery, and the palpable infusion of confidence and fearlessness brought by Jack Crowley, Tom Ahern and the rest of their recalled seven-strong Emerging Ireland contingent.

But the biggest plusses of the display against the Bulls were “our collisions and our discipline” according to Kyriacou.

“We’ve shown flashes of it in the previous rounds in terms of our contact and collision area but just the consistency of our actions within the 80 minutes and the lads coming off the bench and tearing into it as well.

“And a much more pleasing penalty count against. Those two, hand in hand, were probably the two things that were most improved and we’re most happy with.”

While next up is an altogether bigger challenge, Kyriacou maintained: “We’re not looking for anything too drastic in terms of improvements. This is a long process that we’re going through. The pleasing thing is that we’re seeing the stuff we’re working on in training with the lads and these opportunities we’re now taking. And there’s still a lot of areas that we can execute as well.

“It’s massively pleasing in terms of where we’re at, and in terms of going up to Dublin we’re just going to concentrate on us.”