Fineen Wycherley has shone a light on the influence RG Snyman has had on himself and Munster's set up as a whole during his long injury lay-off.
Synman, 28, hopes on Friday night to make his second comeback from an ACL injury since moving to the province in the summer of 2020.
Fellow second row Wycherley, who himself has recently returned from a shoulder injury sustained in October, has revealed how the Springbok has helped his own game develop over time.
READ MORE: Munster have no concerns over playing inspirational RG Snyman on Musgrave Park's 4G surface
"There's no doubt he's a physical specimen, and his game is around the maul, around the scrum," said the 25-year-old.
"He's helped us a lot, developing me as a lineout caller, how we can manipulate teams, different options he thinks works, and for me it's a massive help when you have another pair of eyes on the opposition, and getting different opinions on what he thinks will work.
"That's where he's been an asset to me, but I see him putting arms around younger guys who got injured, or younger guys who are going through a tough time with selection, you can see him pick them up and give a help.
"He's a great character to have around the building, and he's had a very tough time, but as a squad we're trying to rally around him as best we can.
"As a player he's always been a part of what he wants us to do and what he thinks is right, and has no problems speaking up in meetings, even though he may not be playing at the weekend.
"And unfortunately hasn't played a lot of rugby over the last number of years - but he's still been able to contribute in meetings or little unit chats we've had over the last few years."
Wycherley, who can also line out at flanker, confided that early on during his own down time he went to Munster's new defence coach Denis Leamy about improving his carrying after contact and making more yardage on his carry with an aim to be able to off-load effectively.
While at Leinster, Leamy - the former Munster and Ireland back row - helped current world player of the year Josh van der Flier develop his game in that regard.
"Obviously I couldn't do contact, but he just had so many drills, obviously he's worked with Josh and with different players in Leinster and he was able to give me a lot of those drills that I could use.
"They didn't have contact in them but it was more the mental side of things that you could do yourself with one other fella passing you the ball, low level drills but definitely over the last couple of weeks I see them helping me now when I'm back into full training and into games."
The positive side is that he has recovered fully from the injury and is available at the business end of the season to the province.
"Look, being sidelined for that long, it can be difficult, you build up a bit of frustration and you build up a bit of excitement and I'm just lucky now that I got back at this time of the season," he said.
"We have important games coming up, but I just hope I can play my part over the next couple of weeks and do my best for the team."
Playing at Musgrave Park on Friday night will help the man from Bantry, whose brother Josh has hit a rich vein of form.
"It's an amazing place to play, yeah," he smiled.
"It's always where a lot of friends and family can travel to, being from west Cork it's quite a journey to Limerick so most of them make a journey to Cork for these games and it's great to see friendly faces in the crowd.
"But also a sell-out in Musgrave Park, whatever way the stadium is designed, it feels like they're way closer and there's way more than 8,000 or whatever it is.
"So look, we have another opportunity to hopefully play there on Friday night and I just can't wait."
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