Hodnett required surgery on a thumb injury and Kendellen suffered an ankle injury in the defeat in Belfast with Munster giving no timeline for their return to action.<\/p>\n
![\"6](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/0023b40b-614.jpg\"\/)
\nOli Jager is fit and may feature in France this weekend<\/p>\n
Centre Alex Nankivell is fit after a knock, while prop Oli Jager is back in training after a head injury and will be assessed during the week to determine his availability.<\/p>\n
Munster and Toulon both have five points in their pool ahead of the round-three match-up.<\/p>\n
“We’ve got a couple of players back obviously, the international lads that were rested, they’re back in situ,” senior coach Mike Prendergast told RT\u00c9 Sport.<\/p>\n
“Oli Jager was back training today as well, which was good to see.<\/p>\n
“So we’ll see how they come through during the week, train tomorrow again and then we’ll pick the side during the week, all going well that everyone gets through.<\/p>\n
“In terms of availability, we’re not in a bad position. We’re quite good, which is a very positive thing.”<\/p>\n
Munster, under new head coach Clayton McMillan, started the season with five wins in a row but lost heavily to Bath in their opening European tie in November and suffered Interpro defeats to Leinster and Ulster over the last 11 days.<\/p>\n
![\"2](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/0023b07e-614.jpg\"\/)
\nMunster were outplayed by Ulster at the weekend<\/p>\n
“We’re the first to admit it, there’s aspects [from] the weekend, our aerial and our groundwork didn’t allow us flow, some of our decision-making, etc,” Prendergast said of the 28-3 loss at the Affidea Stadium.<\/p>\n
“So if you’re asking me, look, we’re sixth in the league at the moment, a couple of points off second.<\/p>\n
“Is it probably where we should be? Yeah, if I’m honest.<\/p>\n
“And the good thing about this, there’s plenty of area for improvement and [there’s] nowhere better to start than this weekend and look forward to a real challenge, a real European game on a Sunday morning, early afternoon down in Toulon.<\/p>\n
“The whole squad is looking forward to it.<\/p>\n
“We are hurting a bit, obviously, after the weekend because we felt we left ourselves down as a squad, as a staff, as our supporters.<\/p>\n
“And all we want to do is get back up on the horse again and get after it.”<\/p>\n
![\"13](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/0023b409-614.jpg\"\/)
\nMunster beat Toulon 29-18 in January 2024<\/p>\n
Toulon, fifth in the Top 14 and unbeaten at home this season, will be out to avenge a famous defeat to Munster<\/a> at the same venue two years ago, and after sending a youthful side out for last weekend’s 66-0 thrashing at La Rochelle<\/a>, are clearly targeting Sunday’s clash.<\/p>\n “I think the big thing for us this week is about very much looking at ourselves,” added Prendergast.<\/p>\n “Absolutely, we have to look at them. We have to look at their strengths and weaknesses.<\/p>\n “Not that there’s a huge amount of weaknesses, but there’s a few chinks there potentially.<\/p>\n “We’ve got to look at ourselves this week and really get our stuff right.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Munster will welcome back their Ireland contingent for Sunday’s Champions Cup clash against Toulon but back rows John…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":230837,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-230836","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230836\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}