TOM FARRELL ACKNOWLEDGES his move to Munster has probably gone better than he would have anticipated.

Having been informed he wasn’t being kept on at Connacht towards the end of last season, the centre was exploring a move abroad before Munster picked up the phone. Farrell immediately put any other ongoing discussions on hold and before long, he was making the short trip down to Thomond Park.

With the injuries piling up at Munster the 31-year-old has been kept busy in his new club colours. Farrell has started all 11 games for the province this season across the URC and Champions Cup, playing the full 80 in nine of those.  

That extended gametime has helped him stitch together a strong run of form in an inconsistent Munster team. Farrell has been one of the province’s top performers and leads the URC charts for defenders beaten (38) and offloads (17, joint with RG Snyman). He’s also third for carries, successful carries, and is just two tries off the competition’s top try-scorer, Glasgow hooker Johnny Matthews (seven tries).

At this time of year, it’s the type of form that pushes players into the conversation for Ireland’s Six Nations squad. Farrell knows the door to Test rugby is still a tough one to open but hasn’t given up hope of playing his way into Simon Easterby’s plans. 

“Like, I’m fully aware of the personnel that are there,” says Farrell.

Farrell training with Munster this week. James Crombie / INPHO James Crombie / INPHO / INPHO

“You have three potential British and Irish Lions there who have been in and around the team for the last five or 10 years.

“With what they’re doing and how good of players they are, obviously it’ll take something outstanding or something worldly to displace them at this stage in my career, but look, I wouldn’t rule it out, never say never.

You never know, another good two or three weeks under my belt, anything can happen.”

The former Leinster Academy man is heading into another important couple of weeks with Munster, so has the perfect opportunity to further his case with the Ireland coaches.

Saturday sees Munster host Saracens in the Champions Cup before heading away to pool leaders Northampton Saints next weekend. After that, the province are away to the Dragons in the URC on the final weekend of action ahead of the Six Nations.

Munster currently sit third in their Champions Cup pool but a win this weekend would edge them ahead of Saracens going into round four. The English side have had a strange couple of weeks, beating Northampton and Bristol at home either side of a 68-10 spanking away to Bath.

“(We’ve been looking at) Just how efficient they are with their game, how physical they are around the ruck, how difficult and narrowly they make things to play against, it’s tough to get into your flow and they are a very difficult team to break down and get a bit of momentum against them,” says Farrell.

“We’ve seen the result against Bristol on the weekend and the week before that (v Bath), we haven’t even taken that into account. We know that was a one-off game for them which isn’t their usual standards, so we didn’t really look at that game. We just focused on the ones previous to that and the Bristol one just gone.

“But after the Bristol game they’re starting to hit a nice bit of form, so it’ll be a huge test for us.

Obviously with the reduced games in the group stages nowadays, every point is massive for us.”

The game will also been just Farrell’s second European outing at Thomond, having got his first taste in the December win over Stade Francais. It was an experience he was looking forward to ever since he signed a contract with Munster.

“From the outside (before joining Munster), to be honest it’s a small bit of nearly envy or jealousy of people getting to play in a full Thomond Park. It’s a special place, especially when it’s packed out, European nights. The Stade game was my first game for Munster in Europe and it was a cool experience, so hopefully now come Saturday we’ll have another big crowd and we can put a performance in.

“We are probably looking at it as a two-game block. The way we manage to pick up those points doesn’t really matter once we do pick them up, but giving ourselves the best chance would be in front of a home crowd at Thomond Park, we’re under no illusions about that, but if things don’t go to plan, we always have a trip to Northampton next week. But we’re fully focused on the job at hand first.”