They may have been borrowing from credit unions, remortgaging homes and selling the family silver to follow their heroes over the past few years, but many Munster fans look like having their trip to Cardiff paid for by the country's bookies.
Cashman Bookmakers and Paddy Power both took a pulverising almost as bad as that dished out to the Biarritz pack as they each reckon they will be paying out about €1 million to the Munster faithful. "It's a great day to be a Cork man but a terrible day to be a Cork bookie," said Paul Cashman. "We had one guy who put €2,000 on Munster back before the Sale game when they were 20/1 but most of the money would have come in last week."
Ken Robertson of Paddy Power said all the money was on Munster. "We're calling it Black Saturday. We didn't take a bean on Biarritz, and even at 5/4 on for Munster on Saturday, we took one telephone bet of €20,000. I'd say that guy was sweating for a while in the second half."