TV View: What can you say, except, perhaps, ooh la la? Leinster might have gone to Toulouse to win but not all our telly pundits shared their optimism, some of them even suggesting that there was only one team going to lose, and it wasn't Toulouse, if you know what we mean.
Tom McGurk was particularly nervous, sharing his fear that Leinster hadn't enough "hairy arses" in their pack, when we thought it was just Premiership footballers who were into this all-over waxing business.
Brent Pope tried to reassure Tom, insisting that Leinster had, in fact, "a good few hairy arses", but stressed that "we need NASTY hairy arses in the first 20 minutes". George Hook said nothing; he just couldn't believe the lads were having this conversation.
But Lordy, as it proved, there was no shortage of hirsute bottoms, as we would prefer to call them, to the point where one was inclined to sing: "Are you Munster in disguise?"
Dazzling stuff, or, as Stuart Barnes put it over on Sky Sports: "That. Is. AWESOME."
Stuart, incidentally, proved to be a more reassuring co-commentator during the game than George Hamilton or Conor O'Shea back on RTÉ, but it was easier for him, he wasn't emotionally involved. George and Conor have experienced too much pain in the past to be anything but overly cautious.
While we waited for the television referee to have a look at THAT Denis Hickie try, Stuart told us we "could open a can in Dublin - that's a try".
Conor, concerned about the whereabouts of Hickie's left foot, was marginally less certain: "Ooooh, it's very 50-50."
But as any of you who have ever channel-hopped between RTÉ and Sky will know, the time delay between them means that Sky viewers were still waiting for absolute confirmation that Hickie's try was good when the RTE-viewing next-door-neighbours were on their fourth lap of honour around the sitting room.
Naturally, then, we opted largely for RTÉ, rather than Sky's "delayed" coverage. Although there are probably times Tom McGurk would prefer Sky's Dewi Morris on his side than George when he's emoting about these great days.
Dewi waxed lyrical (as opposed to bottoms), describing the performance as "the stuff of legends". Meanwhile. "Felipe Contempomi! Is there a number 10 in world rugby to equal him?" asked a near-tearful Tom. "There is - he's playing for New Zealand," said George. "For feck sake, George, would you play along," Tom very nearly said.
Just when Brian O'Driscoll thought the day couldn't get any better, who should he bump into in the tunnel but Marty Morrissey? "If it's Munster, Brian, it should be played in Croke Park," Marty told him.
"Perhaps, perhaps, no better man to say it than yourself, Marty," said O'Driscoll, who might have been banjaxed tired but was sufficiently alert not to get snared by that one.
Back to Lansdowne/Thomond Park On Tour. George, naturally enough, quoted Shakespeare to Tom when asked for a prediction, and by half-time, despite Munster trailing, his faith was unshaken. "It's a bit like Catholicism; you don't understand it, but you just believe it. It's the same with Munster," he said.
Amen. Munster prevailed, without quite being awesome. "I just hope God lets me get there," said George of that semi-final engagement in Lansdowne. Or Croke Park, if Marty can help it.
And if God is good he'll get Arsenal and Barcelona to the Champions League final. And God knows, we've tried hard to begrudge Arsenal, but it's no good - the time comes when you have to stop trying to stifle the purring. Our favourite part of Clive Tyldesley's commentary on ITV for Tuesday's game against Juventus was that 10-second silence when he simply didn't know what to say. Don't worry, Clive, auld Henry and Fabregas have the same effect on ourselves.
To be brutally frank, yesterday's Boat Race (Live and EXCLUSIVE on ITV) didn't float our, um, boat in the quite the same manner as the performances of Leinster and Arsenal, but hats off, having gone into the race as favourites Toulouse (sorry) Oxford won.
A crew with hirsute bottoms, as it proved.
Oxford were led by Canadian Barney Williams, who, we learnt in the endless build-up (which featured the likes of Barry McGuigan in a rowing machine contest - yep, as if we hadn't realised, ITV, and not the Beeb, now has the EXCLUSIVE rights to the Boat Race), is married to a woman called Buffy. Insert your Vampire Slayer gags here, but don't overdo it.
Our highlight of the afternoon, though, was the prerace declaration by commentator Peter Drury: "And so to the course, a stretch of the River Thames which, whilst always the same, is perpetually changing."
Peter? Are you Murray Walker in disguise?
