Trevor Brennan's European Cup Diary: how playing possum proved the beating of Biarritz.

The semi-final countdown

We met up on Tuesday for a light run-out and this was followed by a weights session which turned into a bit of an exhibition by the Maka brothers. It was one of the most remarkable things I have ever seen.

As we were doing some bench presses, the two boys started loading up. Everyone else was warming up with 100 kilos, but the lads were warming up on 160 - real heavy stuff. The lads then started adding on 20 kilos. Finau settled for 180 kilos but Izzy (Isitolo) - to the amazement of everyone in the gym - bench pressed 200 kilos.

I can only lift 130 kilos, max, but when you think that Izzy's body weight is 120 kilos, lifting 200 is quite amazing.

Needless to say, it was the talk of the club for the rest of the afternoon.

Superstition and lucky charms

On Wednesday our physical preparation coach, Traore Zeba, started handing out lucky charms as he did at around the same stage last year. He had a bag containing around 40 bronze masks, about the size of a key ring, and 40 bracelets.

As you pulled out the bronze mask from the bag you had to say a little prayer, effectively you were asking the mask to grant you a wish. The bracelet was made of three colours: bronze, gold and silver. Bronze represents the earth, gold represents fire, and silver represents the air.

His father is the minister of sport in Burkeno Faso, and his village of about 30,000 people is called Teukogo. Traore ran the 100 metres in the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona and does the physical preparation for ourselves and with the French Olympic athletes based in Toulouse.

Last year, he gave everyone a lucky charm with a bone in it. It's like witch-doctor stuff. You have to laugh. Each year around about this time some of the lads start appearing with salt in their socks, or lucky underpants that look like they were fit for the bin five years ago.

Bound for Bordeaux

Bordeaux was a three-hour bus journey away last Thursday. On arrival at a Mercure hotel, we had another video session which lasted about an hour, on various plays Biarritz do from lineouts, from mauls, from scrums, etc. After that we had a walk to stretch the legs.

On Friday morning we had yet another video session. At that stage the lads were starting to moan a bit. If felt like we'd watched every game Biarritz had played and every move they'd done for the last five years. Serge Lairle, our forwards coach, loves the whole video analysis. At 2.45, we were glad for the team run at the stadium, the Chaban Delmas.

D-Day, as they say

After breakfast, it was clearly going to be very hot, so I started getting plenty of fluids on board. We had a stretch at about 11.0 in the car-park. Fred Michalak was surrounded by the two coaches and Guy Noves. He was practically in tears and you could see his ankle has acted up overnight. Noves came over to the pack and told us to make Freddie's job a little easier, to make sure he got good quality ball and to protect him. How long he would last, we didn't know.

We headed back to the hotel and lying in bed I just started thinking of previous matches I'd played in. Big games that we won, and big games we lost. Some games you just can't forget, like Ireland's defeat to France at Lansdowne Road in 1999, when we lost by a point to a late kick.

Some of the defeats stay with you forever. The ones you win are great, but it's job done and you move on. With the defeats you're left thinking, "if I hadn't done this" or "if I hadn't done that".

All week the coaches had been stressing the importance of discipline, that penalties will win or lose this game. Lying in bed, I though that whatever was going to happen I didn't want to be the person who lost it for the team.

In the dressing-room before the match Guy Noves spoke to everyone individually. When he pulled me aside he started pushing me, and pulling my jersey, and then he started punching me in the chest.

"If they start pushing you, don't react. If they start pulling you, don't react. If they start punching you, don't react. Trevor Brennan, il est mort aujourd'hui." In other words I would lie dead on the ground rather than react.

We won the match 19-11. It was very tough, very physical, and I think our defence won it for us. I was happy, after all I'd been thinking about, to make plenty of tackles for a second row and to have a zero penalty count against my name.

After the match I went back in a convoy with family and friends rather than go back on the team bus. It was great so see so many cars with Toulouse stickers and flags waving. We stopped at a petrol station where a couple of hundred supporters were chanting Allez legs Shade. They mobbed me, then surrounded and shook the car. Their fanaticism was something I had never experienced before, and in a way it sticks in the head more than the match.

Twelve of us went out for a meal that night in a place called El Tetra which also had a disco with live music on another floor.

At about 2 a.m. we were about to leave when a supporter who owns another bite club sent over four bottles of champagne.

Again, the family couldn't get over the generosity. So, needless to say, we stayed just a little bit longer. It was just the little push we needed.

Waiting for Munster or Wasps

On Sunday, after eventually getting everyone out of bed, we headed down to The Melting Pot to watch the Munster game. I have to say that it was one of the best games of rugby I saw this year, last year, or any year. I think Munster probably did everything they possibly could.

I genuinely felt for the Munster lads, just being there so many times, even though it's probably harder to play against Munster than any other team.

Last season's semi-final was one of the hardest games I've ever played in.

Wasps are the in-form team in Europe and everything has to be upped in training from now on if we are to have any chance in the final. All the talk at training on Monday was that "Waps" will be difficult. They can't seem to pronounce the middle "s" in Wasps.

Last night a few of us drove to Perpignan, where most of the team is being rested before playing Biarritz at home again next Sunday, and it'll give me the chance to hook up with Mick O'Driscoll for the night, as we've no training today. Then it will be back to business.

The family and friends are long gone home now but it was a great weekend. Great memories.

• Trevor Brennan's regular Heineken Cup column can be read on the ERC website, which is at www.ercrugby.com)

In an interview with Gerry Thornley