O'Connell a doubt for Wasps opener

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"His back is tied up a bit unfortunately. This morning when he woke up it was a bit tighter than usual so that puts him as a severe doubt for the weekend, probably rules him out.

"What can you do, if your back's sore then your back's sore."

Although there are some fascinating face-to-face confrontations such as the two Irish scrum halfs, Peter Stringer of Munster against Eoin Reddan of Wasps, Kidney believes it will be more of a team effort.

"The media will no doubt focus on one or two of those, but everybody involved knows it is a whole team competition and the individuals will respond to how the team battle allows them to play," said Kidney.

"Every match is going to be like a Cup final, but that is what makes the competition special having 12 matches like that every weekend just to get out of the pool stages.

"There is no competition like it in the world. Wasps is as tough an encounter as you can get given the way Wasps came back in the last 20 minutes against Gloucester that was a top win against a quality side.

"It is a great game and we are looking forward to it, but it is as tough as it gets so we are looking forward to it with a combination of excitement and fear.

"Without doubt there are things we can work on, but I am not too unhappy with the way we are going either."