Leicester's Heineken Cup hero Austin Healey is all set to repay his director of rugby, Dean Richards, for giving him the chance to take the time he needed to overcome a nagging injury.
Healey was on the sidelines for almost four months, but returned to action at outside half in last weekend's victory over Sale Sharks.
"I am very grateful to Dean for giving me the time off to recover. He could have asked me to carry on playing with the injury. I was getting increasingly frustrated at not being able to run and do what I wanted to do.
"I had the injury from the first game in the Heineken Cup at Neath and it got progressively worse. I was having to take a hot bath after I got up in the mornings just so I could walk down the stairs. I stopped playing after the Beziers game and I've been working hard on my recovery ever since.
"Not being able to play has meant I haven't been in the England squad, so I'm bound to have lost ground. I have got a short spell now to prove a point and I hope to get onto the summer tour and take my chances. Any Englishman would play anywhere to get into the current Test team. I was very proud to see them win the Grand Slam in Ireland, but also very jealous. Clive Woodward was very good to me during my injury. He rang me a couple of times and that gave me the desire to reach my goal of getting fit.
"However, my main focus has got to be with the Tigers and to pay them back for the time off they gave me. After two months I was still in the same sort of pain and it has only been in the last month that it has started to go. I was supposed to be fit for February 14, but it took longer than expected. The more I run now, the better it feels. My timing was a bit out in my tacking and kicking against Sale, but I'm hopeful that this weekend I will be much closer to my best.
"I was able to spend a lot of time over the past four months working on my passing and that part of my game is probably better now than when I was actually playing scrum half.
"At the start of the season it seemed better for Leicester for me to play at outside half because we only had Sam Vesty in that position. People have suggested that I might go back to my schoolboy position of scrum half. But I'm just keeping quiet and doing as I'm told.
"It was a great performance by the team against Sale and a good rehearsal for the Munster match.
"The Heineken Cup is very, very close to the same level as international rugby. It is a fantastic tournament. There have been some Heineken games that have been very much on a par in terms of intensity as international matches.
"The game against Llanelli at Nottingham Forrest was immense in terms of the intensity of the occasion and the match. And the game against Stade Francais was just unique. That game put club rugby firmly in people's minds and made them realise it is a serious sport. We should all be grateful for that.
"The decision to keep this game at Welford Road shows what Leicester is all about. Supporters deserve the right to sit in the same seat they use every week to see this match. It's good the club hasn't sacrificed the friendship they have with the fans.
"Munster are a very strong side who have had six weeks to prepare for this game. It will be very close and very difficult. They won't mind travelling to Welford Road because they play very well away from home. One of the most amazing games I've seen was their quarter-final win in Paris against Stade Francais last season when they turned around only six points up to play into the teeth of a gale, yet still won. They showed their steel that day. We have got to show more steel than them if we are going to win this game.
"We go into the game on a pretty level playing field. The only advantage we have is that we are at home.
"As a squad we have been off our mettle a bit this season. The younger guys are getting older and maybe a little less hungry. It has affected the intensity and it is something we have talked about as a group. But the training this week has been back on track. The players are pretty much on edge, which is good. There are lots of nerves about and we've even had players fighting in games of touch and pass. This tournament brings the best out of me and out of the Leicester team. It is bigger than the Premiership and the Cup. It will be the club's best achievement if we can win the Heineken Cup three times in a row - apart from bringing in 17,000 fans week in, week out."