The final of the AIB League at Lansdowne Road tomorrow between Cork Constitution and Dungannon will mark the end of the domestic season. And there is enough talent in those two sides to give us a memorable contest and a fitting climax to the club year.
It will be a very big day for the Dungannon club, the first Ulster team to reach the final. For Constitution it is back on familiar territory as the club seeks to win the title for what would be the third time, thus going third in the roll of honour behind Shannon who head the list with four titles.
Constitution won the championship two years ago when they beat Garryowen 14-11 in extra time. This will be the fourth occasion that the title will be decided by the play-off series, which was started in the 1997-98 season. Shannon beat Garryowen in 1998 in the first final, then came Constitution's win over Garryowen and last season, in an all Leinster final, St Mary's College beat Lansdowne.
It was Cork Constitution who won the inaugural All-Ireland League in 1990-91. That win came in the final match in the league with victory over Garryowen at Dooradoyle in a superb match. Tomorrow there will be a man in the Constitution team who played in that inaugural triumph a decade ago; full back Brian Walsh.
He played in the centre in 1991 and so he will be seeking to win a third medal tomorrow. Only some members of the great Shannon four-in-a-row team can claim that distinction. He has been a great servant to Constitution and narrowly missed out on winning an Ireland cap. He played for Ireland A and was also a member of the Ireland team that toured Australia in 1994. He had a brief spell in England during the 1990s before returning to Constitution.
There is another tangible link with the 1991 team, too, in the Constitution back row Jerry Murray. Jerry is a brother of Niall who played in the centre in 1991. They are members of a great Constitution family. Their father, Jerry senior, won seven Munster Senior Cup medals with Constitution and is a former final Irish trialist, a former Ireland selector and the current president of the Munster Branch.
Dungannon will go into the final with a team well endowed with experienced representative players none of whom has won an AIL first division medal but many of whom shared in the greatest day in Ulster rugby history when the province won the European Cup in 1999 at Lansdowne Road. They are Jonathan Bell, Jan Cunningham, David Humphreys, Justin Fitzpatrick, Gary Leslie, and Tony WcWhirter.
Last season Dungannon finished 10th in the first division, having won the second division the previous season. The team, under coach Willie Anderson, has come a very long way in the interim.
On a broader front Ireland will play Romania in Bucharest tomorrow week and that will bring to an end what has been a frustrating season that saw happenings without precedent. There was the great promise of exciting times in the Six Nations Championship, after Ireland had won against Italy and France and then came the halt from an Irish perspective with the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. It was disappointing and frustrating, but understandable. Now we must wait until next season for the completion of the championship. We may yet have a grand finale to that series when Ireland play England in Dublin in October, if Ireland can win against Scotland in Edinburgh and Wales in Cardiff.
For the six Irishmen in the Lions side, a great adventure awaits in Australia and their fortunes will be followed with tremendous interest during the coming months. Everyone here will wish them and the Lions manager, Donal Lenihan, success.
But as we reflect on the events of the last nine months, once more Munster gave us some great days before losing to Stade Francais in the semi-final. Even in retrospect the manner of that defeat is still a cause of frustration. The decision to disallow the perfectly good try scored by John O'Neill was an appalling decision down to Steve Lander. His subsequent explanation only added to the sense of frustration. Not a sanction imposed on this man from rugby authority for that or for a decision of equal import and ineptitude that cost Harlequins the English Cup and a very poor performance as referee of the Ireland v South Africa match.
Players pay the price for mistakes and indifferent performances but Lander is rewarded by being named in the 18-strong A panel for the forthcoming major internationals.
And on the subject of referees, the two best I have seen this season in this country are Alan Lewis and Alain Rolland. Rolland looks set fair to follow in the tradition of the many excellent referees this country has given to the international game through the years. Not since the great Ham Lambert have we had a man who has played at senior international level - which Ham did in the 1930s - and then became an international referee.
As we turn into summer and reflect on other happenings in the game we had the video referee that awarded Ireland a try against France that was not a try and we did not have the video referee in Lille that would have clearly shown that John O'Neill did score a try.
The most memorable match, Munster's win over Newport at Rodney Parade. It was a real thriller and superb comeback. The best performance of rugby excellence over a full match I saw in this country was that given by Terenure College against Clongowes in the quarter final of the Leinster Schools' Senior Cup. And the Irish Player of the Year?' I personally have no hesitation in naming Ronan O'Gara.
