After their stunning quarter-final victory over the Ospreys, the Saracens have gone down to Gloucester and London Wasps in the Guinness Premiership. 

But O’Driscoll believes Sunday’s opponents will be all the more motivated and difficult to beat as a result of those reverses. 

“A team doesn’t get in to the semi-finals of the Heineken Cup without being a good team and having the potential to go on to win the tournament outright,” said O’Driscoll. 

“Saracens may have had some shady results in the past few weeks, but that is bad news for us. It means they are probably focussing all their efforts on winning the Heineken Cup. 

“I know they lost to London Wasps last weekend, but they scored five tries against them. Any team that can do that against Wasps is a very worthy team.” 

While Saracens are tasting life in the final four of the Heineken Cup for the first time in their history, O’Driscoll and co will be playing in their seventh – and hoping to steer Munster into a fourth final. 

“There is a great buzz around the Munster camp and out on the streets at the moment. We know how hard it is to win when you get to the knock out stages of the Heineken Cup – and that any win is a good win at this stage,” he added.. 

“The confidence is there for us at the moment and we are totally focussed. We know that our former coach Alan Gaffney will have done his homework on us, but even though he coached the bulk of us, we are a different team now. 

“We have more experience and I think we are a better all round team than when he was with us. We have more experience and we have signed well.”