The fixture times have been set for Munster and Leinster’s Heineken Champions Cup fixtures in three weeks’ time and also for the Irish Men’s international team for the 2023 Guinness Six Nations.
Time to open up your online diary then and add them to the weeks and months ahead as something to look forward to.
Munster will be the first game in the Quarter Final round, with their game against Toulouse at the Aviva Stadium set for a 3 PM kick-off on Saturday, May 7th. That will be followed by the action from England where Leinster travel to Leicester for their Quarter Final at 5-30 PM.
Both games will be shown live only on BT Sport, Part of the Sky Sports Extra package here, with the one free to air game on Virgin Media One and Channel 4 being the game on Sunday between Racing 92 and Sale Sharks.
Munster fans in Limerick and Cork will still be unhappy at ceding Thomond Park advantage to Ed Sheeran but will still likely flock to the Aviva with the timing better suited for those journeys of the M7 and the M8.
The hope from an Irish rugby perspective is that they will be doing the same a week later when the winners of the ties involving our two remaining provinces will take place at the home venue of the highest placed team from the pool stages.
Leicester topped Pool B with Munster in 3rd and Toulouse in 8th. Leinster came 4th in Pool A. No decision has had to be taken yet on whether Thomond would be fit to stage a Semi-Final only eight days after the final bars of Galway Girl ring out but it has to be most likely that the home advantage a win over Toulouse would bestow will also take place in Dublin.
Regardless we do know with certainty that the Aviva will be the venue for the visits of France and England in next year’s Guinness Men’s Six Nations.
Those games will take place on Saturday, February 11th with a 2-15 PM kick-off and then on Saturday, March 18th with a 5 PM start as the final match of the concluding Super Saturday.
That’s enough to whet any appetite.
The other games for Ireland will be a trip to Wales on Saturday, February 4th, with another 2-15 start time that will frustrate Leopardstown racecourse and the Dublin Racing Festival, then to Italy on Saturday, February 25th and the early start for the third game in a row, and to Murrayfield in Edinburgh away to Scotland on Sunday, March 12th with a 3 PM kick-off.
