“I came back with a bang in the first game, I thought I played pretty well and was pleased with my performance but I got a bad knock early in the Stade game,” he said. “I was struggling for the rest of the game and at the end of it I knew I wasn’t going to make the following week.

“I just had to keep my eye on the Munster game and I knew I’d have to try and get myself fit for it, and I have.”

The Dungannon backrower has been named in the Ireland squad for the three autumn internationals and he knows this is his last chance to impress and there’s no better team to do it against than Munster.

“It’s a big game for us, they are our rivals, they have a lot of good players and they are playing some good rugby,” he admitted. ”They have shown in the last few games they are vulnerable and we’ve the experience of beating them here last year and hopefully we can do a number on them.”