Pool Four/Farewell to Thomond:It was neither the score nor the record the audience demanded, but you had to be enthralled. Keith Duggansoaked up the atmosphere in the old theatre

By seven o'clock, there was not a dry head in the house. And the falling down rugby theatre on the edge of Limerick town was crumbling under the weight of its own history. The field by then was a sodden, muddied patch filled with bruised, desperate men locked into an elemental battle. For the crowd, at least, the bigger picture of European days ahead had been washed away in the spectacular rain drifts and the bursts of passion coming from the terraces.

Munster, the team that built their reputation on putting meaning into the sporting clichés of "heart" and "pride", were, on what was to have been a night of glorious encore, threatening to go down. They were, to the shock of the partisan red fans, looking like a losing team. And how typical and how stinging that it was Leicester, that most un-flashy and implacable of English rugby cities, standing in the final hour between the Thomond faithful and a perfect ending. From the chiselled, Mount Rushmore features of Martin Johnson to the clever, deceitful hand of Neil Back, Leicester have been the thorn in the side of this long Munster romance.

All afternoon, there had been a slightly frantic feel around this battered Limerick venue. Many fans turned up without a priceless pass, wearing placards begging for tickets. There did not seem to be a single tout open for business. The programmes sold out a full hour before kick-off.

As with all sports grounds, different groups stand in different areas and so there was a sense of everything and everyone falling into place. The powdered, the groomed and the moneyed gathered in the stand, which was full to the rafters. Among them sat the leader of government. Beneath them was a dense blanket of red, the famous "pit" where the crowd seem on the verge of breaking like a wave onto the field. And the atmosphere, as though stage-managed, lived up to the reputation and stories from down the years.

Thomond Park is a winter venue, and by four o'clock the big floodlights were like guiding lights - although if they could have, Munster would probably have played this match under mediaeval torch flame.

As darkness fell, the place was all shadows and noise, rushed pints in the Shannon clubhouse and bedlam at the hot-dog stands. Places were at a premium and people improvised. Youngsters climbed walls. A group of teenagers made a fine podium with two barrels and a plank of wood. Two men detained by pints in the clubhouse came charging around the corner carrying a pair of velvet-cushioned stools. By standing on them, backs against the wall, they had the finest view in the ground. "Sure they'll not be needed for a while," one of them said apologetically.

Stout men at the rear of the pit stood on tiptoes. One well-tailored gentleman, tipsy and stuck for a vantage point, studied a clown wearing stilts as though wondering whether, after swiftly tackling the jester, he might be able to balance on the pegs for the full 80 minutes. He decided against and tottered down behind the goal.

It was not the most flowing rugby match ever witnessed in Limerick but it was heartfelt. And from the minute Geordan Murphy dived jubilantly across the Munster try-line, there was a gnawing sense that this might not be one of those evenings scripted by a divine hand. After 12 years of triumph, some of them crushing and others hair-raising, all the fans wanted was to lock the gates on a high note, to say goodbye to this intimidating, storied dump of a ground knowing that something perfect and unique had been achieved. And of course, the players knew that and maybe, just maybe, it played upon their minds in the hours leading up to the match.

"No, it didn't," Ronan O'Gara would sigh flatly afterwards. "But it will now, I think. Made a balls of it. So that is something we will have to live with. It was a great day last May but it is not a great night tonight. We let the whole province down."

It wasn't quite that. The season, after all, is redeemable. The pain lay in the knowledge that coming within one lousy match of a 12-year unbeaten home record is one of those frustrations that will grow over the years.

So much has been said about the curious mystique of Thomond Park that outsiders must have felt it was overblown. Some sports stadiums like Lansdowne or the old Boston Garden or Anfield or Clones on mid-Ulster derby days become all the more beloved for their shortcomings and their ugliness. So it is with Thomond, an unflattering, functional edifice in daylight but magical and spine-tingling in those minutes before kick-off, when the drums are pounding and every single person, from Paul O'Connell to the youngest child, seems clear about his or her role.

And that was the revelation on Saturday night. For over 10 years, the desperate gallantry on the field and the pagan howling from the stands had always gotten them through. Over a period like that, the myth of invincibility grows. Because what old stadiums have is ghosts. And as Louis Deacon wreaked havoc and the big winger Alesana Tuilagi thundered along the tramlines with impunity, the occasion demanded that the spirit of old Munster men like Moss Keane and Keith Wood and Peter Clohessy and the Wallace boys would be out there. Perhaps they were. But it became increasingly clear there was no sorcery behind their 10 years of winning and that that this last Munster rain dance was going to yield no joy. At some point, as 10 minutes left became five and then two, that realisation sank in.

"That last-game stuff, it works both ways," reasoned Leicester's Irish lock Leo Cullen.

"It's a funny place. Even warming up you realise there are very few grounds in the world with an atmosphere like this. But once you get a good start, you can live off that. If we'd had to chase the game, it might have been different. But that never happened," he said cheerfully.

By then the old field was long empty. The Leicester boys, spruced and happy, came out of the changing-rooms and up the bare stairs looking for dinner.

The interior of the Thomond stand is not posh at the best of times, but on Saturday night the boxes and chairs were stacked, ready for moving out.

Harry Ellis looks like an English public-school boy but he walked like an old man. It had been a punishing night. "Dinner up this way, fellows?" he enquired politely. "Brilliant." He headed off for the last meal at Thomond Park.

The place was emptying fast now. Diehards sank pints in the Shannon clubhouse under the smiling photographs of legions of Munster players from yesteryear. Memories and all that.

But it was nine o'clock and the rain was lashing down and suddenly Thomond looked cold and derelict, too bright and beaten up. Not many were hanging around taking photographs. It had been a tough last performance at the rugby shrine. But what a run! And as the song goes, the record shows they took the blows.