Munster have played in every Heineken/Champions Cup campaign since the competition started and, as such, it is hard to gauge just what the fall-out would be should they fail to make it next term.

Certainly the financial ramifications of replacing a Champions Cup campaign with a Challenge Cup program would impact sponsorship, ticket sales and, as a result, salaries.

Right now, they are trying to recruit a new coach and with the club sitting outside the Champions Cup qualification positions is it fair to say that might be slowing down applications? Hard to know, but maybe.

READ MORE: Munster: No Head Coach, an injury crisis and outside the Champions Cup qualifying places - The Reds are one defeat away from the fire

READ MORE: What 2025 has in store for Stephen Bradley, Damien Duff and the rest of the League of Ireland

Munster may have topped the league-proper last season, finished fifth the season before and sixth the season before that.

But having watched Scarlets defeat Dragons at Parc y Scarlets on New Year's Day, they rolled over in 2025 sitting in 11th place in the table.

Munster's 21 league points from nine league games is below par and a conservative guess is they will need somewhere around 48-50 points to make the Champions Cup; that will take, at minimum, six wins from their remaining nine games.

However with a trip to Dragons next up and home games against Scarlets and Edinburgh as the first three of those, there may well be a chance to bank 12/13 points and ease the pressure ahead of a difficult trip to second-placed Glasgow.

The news player-wise to here has been dominated more by who is on the treatment table but, certainly the imminent returns of Alex Nankivell, Conor Murray, Peter O'Mahony can't come soon enough.

Centre Tom Farrell, signed at the start of the season from Connacht, has been by far and away their most consistent performer and he has made the top in four different URC attacking categories (see below).

It will be interesting to see if this is considered worth a Six Nations panel call-up for the Dubliner, who like Tadhg Beirne is a Leinster Academy graduate, although at 31 years-of-age it seems a long shot.

POINTS SCORED: 192 - 7th

TRIES SCORED: 31 - 3rd

OFFLOADS: 93 - 3rd

METRES GAINED: 3,608 - 2nd

DEFENDERS BEATEN: 190 - 5th

CLEAN BREAKS: 71 - 3rd

OTHER/PLAYER

LEADING TRY SCORER - Tom Farrell 5 - 2nd

SUCCESSFUL CARRIES - Tom Farrell 49 - 4th

CLEAN BREAKS - Tom Farrell 10 - 6th

DEFENDERS BEATEN - Tom Farrell 38 - 1st

METRES GAINED - Mike Haley 596m - 1st

OFFLOADS - Tom Farrell 17 - 1st

CARRIES - Tom Farrell 113 - 3rd

TACKLES MADE - Gavin Coombes 129 - 2nd

PENALTIES CONCEDED - Jack O'Donoghue 11 - 2nd

LINEOUTS WON (THROWERS) - Niall Scannell - 9th

LINEOUT STEALS - Niall Scannell 3 - 10th

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