Munster confirm absolutely dreadful injury news to three key players

And Niall Scannell will be out a while yet, too.

Munster are top of their Champions Cup pool after following up their draw against Exeter with a bonus point victory over Gloucester at Thomond Park. Johann van Graan's men won 36-22 and ran in five tries in securing the win in Limerick. Danny Cipriani was sent off after 28 minutes - with the score at 5-3 - and Munster eventually found the gaps to do the damage. Along the way, Munster lost some key players and some of them might be out quite a while. Tommy O'Donnell, Rhys Marshall and Dan Goggin have all joined the province's growing injury list. https://twitter.com/patmccarry/status/1053646970101923840 Following the game, van Graan provided a somewhat catastrophic injury update. "Yeah, serious," he began.

"Tommy has gone to the hospital, no confirmation yet but I believe he broke his leg. Dan Goggin looks like a serious knee injury. [We] also lost Rhys Marshall which looked like a serious upper leg injury so we'll know more on Monday. Big loss, only eight weeks into the season and three starters that go down like this. "With all the injuries that we have currently that are not in the squad, long season ahead but it's waiting from our side and it just shows the game at this stage. We talk about player welfare but the game is becoming more and more physical, guys are getting shots, three serious injuries from our side... Huge for us, those three guys."

Injuries are part of the game but Munster seem to get long-term blows far too frequently for anyone's liking.

"Niall [Scannell] took a blow to the leg early in the week. We're pretty thin there at this stage. Luckily we've got Mike Sherry as well, he should be raring to go. "At centre, Jaco took a blow to his other knee which is a bone bruising which is taking a bit longer than we anticipated. Chris Farrell is not back yet. Now Goggin being injured. Luckily we're not the only club struggling with that. "Like I said, all the injuries seem pretty big, there's not a lot of soft tissue. Sometimes when you get soft tissue you can adapt your training but it's all big trauma injuries."

Glasgow up next for Munster, in the Guinness PRO14, and Munster will be well aware that they will be in for another war there. The hits keep on coming.