It was their 32-16 win over the province under Tony McGahon that seemingly marked the start of Toulon European revolution, eventually leading to their cup final triumph against Clermont at the Aviva Stadium last year.

The Stade Vélodrome is set to provide a much more hostile environment than the Stade Felix-Mayol did in what was O’Connell’s only other meeting with the French side.

“I’ve only ever played Toulon once before away from home and we were well beaten,” O’Connell said.

“They seem to be a stronger side now than they were back then, so it’s an uphill task for us to go there and win the game.”

The Irish Captain has described the week leading up to this game as the same type of feelings he was experiencing the week Ireland welcomed The All Blacks to the Aviva back in November.

“It’s a bit like the feeling you get the week you play New Zealand, you know how good you have to be to be even in with a chance. It’s going to be very tough but that’s what the competition is all about.”

This weekend’s game seems to have exceeded the hype surrounding last year’s semi-final game at Clermont where Munster were a bounce of a ball away from an Aviva Stadium final.

O’Connell added this game presents Munster’s biggest challenge:

“I’d put Toulon at a par maybe above Clermont, they have incredible talent all across the team - the players love playing for and living in Toulon.”

“When you see how they play, they play for each other - it’s an incredibly tough task for us.”

Therehas slao been plenty of talk about learning from Leinster’s mistakes that saw them crash out at the quarter final stage a few weeks ago.

O’Connell noted Munster must put Toulon under pressure at ruck and maul time, something Leinster didn’t do.

“One of the big things Leinster rely on is quick ruck ball, ball retention and putting teams under pressure and they didn’t do that in the game. Most of it had something to do with Toulon who are excellent at the ruck, certainly Armitage, Lobbe and Bastareaud are all excellent at the breakdown.”

“If you leave them kill the momentum whenever you have the ball, you’re going to be in trouble,” said the Munster legend.