The Ospreys will turn to Alun Wyn Jones and Rhys Webb in order to prevent a drama becoming a full-blown crisis.
The Lions pair are to be brought back for their first matches since the summer tour following the region’s poor start to the Guinness Pro14 campaign.
Head coach Steve Tandy has confirmed his two biggest names will be pressed into action for their next games – away to Treviso in Italy and then the trip to South Africa to play the Cheetahs.
The Ospreys lost 21-16 at home to Munster on Saturday – meaning back-to-back defeats after their loss to Glasgow last week, which came after their unimpressive narrow opening victory against Zebre.
Tandy confirmed: “We’re taking 30 boys to Treviso and South Africa. Rhys Webb and Alun Wyn Jones will definitely be in that.”
Munster held off a second-half comeback from Ospreys to register their third straight win in torrential rain at the Liberty Stadium.
The Irish province dominated most of the match and scored two tries to one but the Ospreys were able to register a losing bonus point.
Conference A leaders Munster were indebted to tryscorers Jean Kleyn and Darren Sweetnam, with captain Tyler Bleyendaal kicking 11 points, but the fly-half also missed two penalties and a conversion.
Centre James Hook was Ospreys’ tryscorer with fly-half Sam Davies kicking three penalties and a conversion.
It was not enough to prevent Tandy admitting he had given his players both barrels during his interval team talk.
“It is very rare that I have to come in at half-time and dish it out, but that was not acceptable, not good enough,” he said.
“There is definitely some soul searching going on, right across the board, not just players, but with us as coaches.
“Ultimately, that was not anywhere near what we want to produce.
“It just seemed like a total lack of energy out there, everyone was looking around at each other to try and lead us out of it.
“People were walking back.
“There aren’t many times I come in here (to face the media) and am devastated and disappointed in an effort and application thing because that is what we pride ourselves on.
“You can look at loads of reasons of what you haven’t got, but it is our choice around our attitude, how we pitch up and how we fight and go about our business.
“I can handle losing games, but I can’t handle a lack of application and there was definitely a lack of application around that first 40 minutes, which you struggle to put your finger on because we felt the working week had been really positive.
“We felt there was stuff from the Glasgow game we could build on, but there was no building blocks from this.
“The second half you could argue we played a bit smarter, played the conditions pretty well.
“We got a (bonus) point, but if we had won the game, it wouldn’t have been deserved.
“If you don’t front up in the first 40 minutes of a big game against Munster then you have a problem.”
