Alone it Stands recounts Munster's famous defeat of the All Blacks. Its writer John Breen hopes next weekend will script another legend
I was seven years old when I first became aware of the word Munster, in 1973, a year when Munster drew against the All Blacks. I remember my father talking about the game and telling me that something fantastic very nearly happened (it did five years later). At my first Munster game I remember being thrilled by the sight of the red jerseys against the green Thomond turf in Limerick.
However, I really only became aware of rugby union's European Cup in 1999, when I went to Lansdowne Road to see Ulster play Colomiers in the final. I got my ticket courtesy of the brother of my then-flatmate, Robbie Taylor. His brother is an accountant and the match clashed with his clients' deadline for filing tax returns in the North, meaning he was snowed under with work. Robbie persuaded him to bequeath the ticket to me in the name of Ulster/Munster detente, and with a view to rubbing my Limerick nose in the victory for months afterwards.
Even if I did have to hear Robbie brag about Ulster's victory for months afterwards, several of the day's events made their way into my play Alone It Stands, so it was an afternoon well-spent for me.
About 15 minutes before the kick-off I found myself in exalted Ulster company; we had joined Robbie's dad, a retired RUC inspector, and Brian Reed, a member of the Ulster branch. Brian opened the back of his car and we all had some sandwiches to strengthen us for the spectacle ahead. An enterprising local boy happened upon us and inquired did we want someone to look after the car while were at the game. I was then teaching in Ringsend Technical Institute, and the boy was one of its pupils, so I assured the distinguished gentlemen that all would be well, but furtively gave the young lad a pound.
Later at the game, which was a tame affair compared to the semi-final against Stade Français at Ravenhill some weeks before, Lloyd Gibb from Coleraine rugby club offered me a drink from his hip-flask. It nearly scorched the throat off me, but I covered it so as not to let them see a Limerickman cry.
Ulster won that match, and remain the only Irish team to have won the tournament. My riposte to Robbie has always been the same: the English clubs weren't playing in the competition that year so they really only won the "Heineken-light Cup". It will take Munster to win the real thing. A cheap shot I know, but you have to say something.
After the game I kept asking myself, why haven't Munster won this? I'm still asking.
My most recent trip to a final was to Cardiff in 2002, when Munster took on Leicester. We flew over on a jumbo jet out of Shannon. I don't remember much about the game now, and I didn't see the Neil Back incident (in which the Leicester player illegally slapped the ball from scrum-half Peter Stringer's hands with only moments remaining), but my abiding memory of the day is the flight home. Whereas on the streets of Cardiff the Munster fans had put a brave face on their disappointment, once the cabin doors closed all pretence evaporated. It was a long, sad, quiet flight home.
The Munster phenomenon hasn't just come out of thin air. Munster teams have always been special. The All-Ireland League demonstrated this. Starting in 1990 the AIL has been won seven times by Shannon, (club motto: Resistance is Futile); twice by Garryowen; twice by Cork Constitution; and once by Young Munster. Young Munster's win in 1993 was special. To ride on the Dart and hear nothing but good thick Limerick accents was pure heaven.
(Just for the record, I played for Garryowen as a young lad. It may seem that Shannon are the heroes of Alone It Stands, but who has the last laugh?)
Lansdowne Road may be the official home of Irish rugby, but Thomond park in Limerick is surely its spiritual home. Watching Munster play at home here in the Heineken Cup has become one of those "things to do before I die" events. The proximity and passion of the crowd, the reverential hush during penalties, all serve to mesmerise and de-claw visiting teams.
The most bizarre game I ever attended was between the Australian Wallabies and Munster at Thomond park in 1984. The ground was completely shrouded in fog but it was decided not to cancel the game as it couldn't be rescheduled. It was a full house anyway. It was the Wallabies team with Michael Lynagh and David Campese, with their long cross-field passes. Visibility was only about 50 metres, so every now and again you would glimpse a player emerge from the mist with the ball. Or you would hear a cheer from the opposite end and word would filter back five minutes later as to what had happened.
I first met some of the current Munster players in 2000, when the team came to see Alone It Stands the night before they flew out to France for a semi-final against Toulouse. They were good-natured and many of them stayed afterwards to have their photos taken with the cast and to sign autographs. I was struck by how young many of them looked - Ronan O'Gara and Peter Stringer in particular. But that game against Toulouse is where the current Munster myth was forged. Blistering French sun, a man down for 10 minutes, and yet Munster scored two tries in under five minutes, one from a move started from their own 22. From that moment on Munster rugby had entered a new era.
When I talked to Tony Ward about playing for Munster he said that when you played for Ireland you played for yourself, to keep your place, but when you played for Munster you played for the team. That still stands. The Munster team is always greater than the sum of its parts. They have been lucky in their coaches and management. Team spirit is difficult to create and frustratingly easy to destroy. Look at Wales.
There is something noble in the way the Munster team have carried themselves over the years. They have shown humility and grace in defeat and victory. They have inspired young and old. They are a monument to what we can achieve when we work together. Where does this spirit come from? Why does Munster evoke such passion in its players and in its fans? Well, go to Limerick next week and you'll find out. The whole city will be red.
The Munster team is like a giant GAA club side, with a parish that stretches from Kinvara to Cobh. Rugby in Limerick has always been an inclusive game. It started out between the dockers and the British troops stationed in the garrison. They played each other in ad hoc games; when the troops left, the Dockers formed Shannon, a club named after the river that gave them their livelihood. Then many other similar clubs sprung up. Picture a club like St Mary's of Limerick, with an old widow's shack as clubhouse and a patch of waste ground next to the knackers yard to train on. They had a messianic coach who drove them out of their skins then plied them with oxtail soup. Brendan Foley started his rugby career with St Mary's. He went on to play for Shannon, Munster and Ireland. He was on the Munster team that beat the All Blacks and his son Anthony will play at number eight next Saturday. His daughter Rosie also plays rugby for Ireland. They don't make oxtail soup like they used to!
When I think of the spirit of Munster rugby it is men like Brendan Foley who come to mind, or Fox O'Halloran, president of Shannon when they had three players on the Irish team. Fox earned his living working in a petrol station. There was Tom Clifford, an Irish international prop and a British Lion. And Tony Ward, unpredictable, mystical and gracious.
I spoke to someone this week who bought his tickets for next week's game a year ago. Just in case. That is not the Munster way. I have entered into labyrinthine arrangements for tickets in the past involving holiday cottages and turkeys.
I will travel to the game with three of my oldest friends: Paul McCarthy, was in Thomond Park when Munster beat the All Blacks in 1978 and as such abandoned me in my hour of need as I was trying to build the biggest bonfire on the South Circular Road in Limerick. Francis Verling, who was the real leader of our childhood gang, has just bought a big motorbike (yes, he has just turned 40), and Declan Greene, painter and designer, is one of the funniest people I know. We will be getting a ferry to Holyhead at 8.30am on Friday and staying overnight outside Cardiff. It promises to be a great trip.
But God, I hope Munster win. Not because of how I will feel. But for the players. I think I speak for all Munster fans when I say that they owe us nothing. They want this in a way that people like me cannot understand. I would like them to be spared the pain of having it taken away. I am sure I won't enjoy the match. I didn't enjoy the Leinster game until after Ronan O'Gara's try. But it will be better to be in the ground with the fans than watching it at home and scaring my children.
When I enter the Millennium Stadium next Saturday I will be wearing my red jersey. The colour of blood, of pride, of raw meat, of bitter tears. The colour of victory and defeat, of loyalty, of love, of fear, of life and death. The colour of Munster.