Leinster's James Lowe spills the beans on the 'mutual hatred' between the provinces

"There's a mutual hatred between the boys and it's something that I seriously look forward to."

They can move the derby out of the Aviva, RDS and Thomond.

But not even neutral Croke Park can take anything away from what James Lowe giddily describes as the 'mutual hatred' between Leinster and Munster.

It is, of course, that you 'hate' your provincial rivals as much as you 'love' your international teammates.

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But, hey, that's all by-the-by given Jones's Road will be packed on Saturday evening with two sets of howling fans and, don't underestimate, the ghosts of the seismic 2009 European semi-final swirling up and down the ground.

"It's some rivalry isn't it?" says Lowe in anticipation. "To be involved with Leinster with a rivalry that I have sort of inherited, it's pretty exciting.

"There's a mutual hatred between the boys and it's something that I seriously look forward to. There's not many club teams that, for round four of a competition, can almost already sell out 80,000.

"As much as I love to see them succeed and I play with a lot of them, you know, when it comes to it - if Casey is in front of me, I don't care, like if Calvin's in front of me, don't care.

"It is pretty mutual I'm sure, you don't like losing against Munster and I'm sure they're saying the exact same thing on the other side but at the end of the day, we will shake hands and hopefully see each other in November.

If Johnny Sexton and Ronan O'Gara was a specific, the animosities are not quite so personal these days; there aren't any obvious vendettas!

"There's good people and bad people in all areas of work life, isn't there?

"So there's always going to be a little bit of rugby, obviously, it's a heated, physical exchange and words can be said but what happens on the field normally stays on the field, nothing really boils over into the car park like the old days.

"It's just a red and a blue jumper and when it comes to playing against each other, we don't like each other. There was Sexto and ROG back in the day, they didn't like each other, though that was quite funny. They were simply in different jumpers.

"It's water under the bridge a lot of the time, I'm too old to get involved in it now, I just stir the pot from a distance."

Put simply, the one-on-ones in a Leinster-Munster games have the potential to decide who will play for Ireland in a season.

thus, a Crowley-Frawley match-up would be fascinating, JGP against Casey, there is Munster's front-row, exceptional last week, and finding it difficult to get capped, there's RG Snyman having jumped ship, a Leinster back-row that seem to always comprise three of the four in Ireland's matchday squad...and more!

Brothers-in-arms testing each other in as hostile conditions as possible"

"It's probably a good way to look at it. You know, the last time they played Croke Park they were probably the big brother and you can say the tides are turned, if you really want to put it like that.

"So we are looking forward to it and it's going to be, going to be a good step up.

"It's always a big week no matter where and when you play them but, obviously, playing at Croker against Munster is pretty significant on both fronts so it's something we are looking forward to.

"So look, we're looking forward to it this Saturday, that's for sure, we know we're going to have to step it up again if we want to put a score on Munster."

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