This is a much bigger game for Connacht than it is for Munster — on paper. Connacht are currently seven points behind us with two games to play, and the framing of this weekend naturally puts us together as playoff adversaries. In reality, I think Connacht are racing with Cardiff and Ulster in this zero-sum playoff race, but it won’t feel like this Saturday.

For us, it’s simpler. Not simple. Simpler. We need three match points to be sure of the top eight. Two would probably do the job, but three makes it sure. Outside of that, though, there are bigger things to concern ourselves with. Narrative things. Narrative, as we now know, is powerful.

We don’t need to win this game — we need a losing bonus point at least — but the statement it would make if we did win it is powerful enough to chase down. With the right results this weekend, we could end the round in second. With the wrong ones, we’d be back in eighth.

More than that, it would be a huge lift for a playing group that has been under siege for months, whether it was of Munster’s own doing or not.

It’s time for this group to start looking up, rather than down, and there’s no better way to do that than by giving Connacht a black eye in Galway.

It’s long, long overdue.

Munster: 15. Mike Haley; 14. Shane Daly, 13. Alex Nankivell, 12. Dan Kelly, 11. Andrew Smith; 10. JJ Hanrahan, 9. Craig Casey (C); 1. Jeremy Loughman, 2. Diarmuid Barron, 3. Michael Ala’alatoa; 4. Edwin Edogbo, 5. Fineen Wycherley; 6. Tom Ahern, 7. John Hodnett, 8. Gavin Coombes.

Replacements: 16. Lee Barron, 17. Josh Wycherley, 18. Conor Bartley, 19. Jack O’Donoghue, 20. Brian Gleeson, 21. Ben O’Donovan, 22. Seán O’Brien, 23. Alex Kendellen

Connacht: 15. Sam Gilbert; 14. Shane Jennings, 13. Harry West, 12. Bundee Aki, 11. Shayne Bolton; 10. Josh Ioane, 9. Ben Murphy; 1. Billy Bohan, 2. Dylan Tierney-Martin, 3. Sam Illo; 4. Darragh Murray, 5. Josh Murphy, 6. Cian Prendergast (c), 7. Shamus Hurley-Langton, 8. Sean Jansen

Replacements: 16. Eoin de Buitléar, 17. Peter Dooley, 18. Finlay Bealham, 19. Joe Joyce, 20. Paul Boyle, 21. Matthew Devine, 22. Jack Carty, 23. Seán Naughton

The battle against Connacht will be defined by how we kick and how they kick in return. Connacht’s revival in the second half of the season has been defined by their growing comfort in Stuart Lancaster’s counter-transition system, which is as much about getting your defensive transition right as it is being able to snap into offensive transition.

It’s unlocked by their kicking.

At a base level, as Leinster did under Lancaster, Connacht kick long to squeeze you territorially, pressure your exit and use that pressure to consistently pin you inside your 10m line.

They do this with really tight, high-volume defence, and they select their backrow primarily to affect this. They fill the field, only really look to slow rucks through counter-ruck action on isolated rucks and pressure you with a really good dominant tackle rate.

They kick long, swarm up in transition defence, and then force errors out of teams looking to play through them on kick return.

So, for Munster, there’s a real premium on taking these kicks deep and then making it beyond Connacht’s transition line, and right up the middle to ours, where guys like Barron, Hodnett and Kelly will have to resist the pressure from Aki, Hurley-Langton and Prendergast in that defensive transition space.

Over 22 games this season, Connacht’s efficiency numbers tell two different stories depending on where you look. Strip out the Challenge Cup — where they dismantled Black Lion 52-0 and put 75 past Montauban — and their URC efficiency picture is considerably less impressive. Their defensive 22m average of 2.5 points conceded per entry is middling, not “lockout” territory. Leinster scored 3.8 per entry at the Dexcom in January. The recent run of wins over Zebre, Glasgow and Scarlets flatters the rolling average; two of the three sit in the bottom half of the URC, and Glasgow were hit with Six Nations absentees.

The games that matter most for Saturday’s blueprint are the ones where Connacht shipped 4.0 or more points per 22m entry — Bulls, Dragons, Sharks, Leinster, Ospreys and Montpellier. The common thread across all six is sustained forward pressure in the 22m across multiple phases. Connacht’s defensive shape holds under one or two phases but fractures under sustained physicality. They rely on the initial rush defence to create turnovers; when that fails, the numbers deteriorate quickly.

On the attacking side, Connacht have been efficient when they’ve had clear lanes — 4.3 against Ulster, 4.8 against a rotated Sharks in the Challenge Cup. Their counter-transition work sets the table for that, but it’s most often finished off by their really solid set-piece. Their scrum is the very picture of solidity, if a little gimmicky at times, with some dark arts flops and drag and drops on the engage. Whatever way you want to slice it, they very rarely get destroyed in the scrum, and it empowers their transition defence. They force turnovers, and if that ends in a scrum, they almost always manage to launch successfully.

Their lineout isn’t as tight across the season so far — a drop from last season in that regard — but they can be really sticky in defence. There is a tangential correlation with Connacht losing and their lineout going sub-85% (Montpellier, Leinster x2), which begs the question as to whether or not we’ll decide to heavily contest their lineout. Their maul — outside of the 5m line — isn’t really that much of a threat, so we might well decide to pull that lever.