HEINEKEN CUP FINAL DIARY:Leinster have a better defence, a better attacking game and a stronger bench.

SITTING IN a bar the last time I was back in Dublin with a friend of mine, drinking a few pints of “Arthur”, all of a sudden a lad who was with a couple of his mates started screaming and shouting about how he couldn’t live any more on the dole. He couldn’t buy food. He couldn’t pay the bills.

He couldn’t pay his mortgage. The list went on and on.

At this stage the whole bar was listening. One of his friends said: “Calm down Johnny. What are you going to do about it?”

He said: “Listen, I’ve no choice Mick. I’m going to go into a life of crime.”

“What? Jaysus Johnny, a life of crime? Are you going to rob a bank or something?”

He goes: “Jaysus, no, I wouldn’t do that.”

“Then what are you going to do Johnny?”

“I’m going to go into politics,” he says.

The place fell around laughing! I’m sure we’ll hear many stories like this over a few pints in Cardiff over the weekend.

Leinster have always had the type of players who you’d go over the trenches with but if there’s one player who stands out all over the years when I played with him and against him, and having watched him recently play for club and country, it’s Brian O’Driscoll.

He’s someone who is a gentleman off the pitch but on the pitch he is a hard nose who commands respect. You can see the way he pulls the others together and he will get more out of the team than the individuals themselves. This is a quality very few have. He can also turn a match with a touch of a ball whether it’s a big hit, cleaning a ruck, sidestepping three guys and scoring a try or a pick and go close to the line.

All the talk has been about his race against time to get on the pitch. I remember in 2003 not training for a week before the final, Toulouse v Perpignan, as I picked up a knee injury myself. I got rubbed and physio twice a day, hot and cold baths, a bit of bike work, and by Friday’s team run in Lansdowne Road, Guy Noves put his arm around me and said: “It’s now or never, Trevor.”

He’d picked me, it didn’t matter that I didn’t train but I needed to come through this. I did, we beat Perpignan and I managed to last 50 minutes. It’s better starting a player with a knock than it is bringing him off the bench. It’s vital for the team that Brian does start.

When you think this competition started off with 24 teams back in October, reaching the final is a massive achievement but you’ll always have regrets as a player if you miss the final. Anyway, at least 50 per cent of players will be playing with an injury of some sort at this stage of the season.

Northampton beat Munster in 2000 and my memories of watching that game were of Ronan O’Gara’s kick to win the game and the picture of Mick Galway carrying his daughter to pick up his runners-up medal and fighting back the tears. And when you finish your rugby career you remember the ones that got away more than the ones you won.

I won finals with Toulouse in 2003 and ’05, but I’ve never watched a video of the defeat to Wasps in ’04 at Twickenham. If anyone ever talks about the Heineken Cup, the memory of that day comes flooding back.

I remember the bag men, aka the papies, as they were all retired guys working voluntarily for the club. They mark the pitch, wash the clothes, clean the dressingrooms, pack the bags; make sure when you come in you have your socks, shorts, jerseys, shoulder pads, knee pads, shin pads, extra studs. They would make the trip to Lourdes to fetch the holy water. Small bottles would be given to the players and big ones are kept for match day.

While we’d be doing our warm-up they would be spreading the holy water all across the touchline from one side of the pitch to the other. Our fitness coach has lucky braces sent from South Africa where his father is a chief in a village and would have them blessed by, I suppose you could say, a witch doctor.

Other lads get out the lucky underpants, the lucky socks which would be worn under the match day socks. It’s funny how you get into the whole thing.

One year I forgot my lucky boots. I had them two years. The first year I won the Heineken Cup and reached the French final and I didn’t change the boots the next year, I just changed the studs. A long story short, I forgot to pack them for the final against Wasps and I had to wear a new pair that the papies produced. We lost the game which was a cracker and I blamed it on the boots.

To this day I wonder what would have happened if I had the proper boots, because after about 20 minutes and I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t run, I missed a couple of tackles. I remember I had Alex King but couldn’t sprint properly and he scored a try.

Is it any wonder that players are superstitious? All sorts of unexpected things can happen on any given day, and especially in a final, but I think Leinster will win today. They play a better brand of rugby, they’ve a better defence, they’ve a better attacking game, a better offloading game.

I think Northamption play rugby that we played 10, 15 years ago. It’s all forward-orientated, it’s pick and go, keeping it tight and, though they have Chris Ashton and Ben Foden, they don’t have the class players that Leinster have in the backline.

Leinster also have more strength in depth, and therefore a better bench, with players that can turn a game, and that’s been a strength of Toulouse over the years, being able to bring fellas like Heymans, Clerc or Michalak off the bench. Match-winners.

I’ve watched Northampton this season and they’ve been relatively lucky with the pool they were drawn in. Ulster gave them a real scare and Perpignan just didn’t turn up. Against Leicester last week, 3-0 at half-time, it was like watching rugby in the 1950s. Leinster just have another dimension to them.

I picked them at the start of the season. I didn’t just pick them out of the quarter-finals. I felt Leinster would win the European Cup this year because of the style of rugby they play. Some people criticised them when Joe Schmidt first came in but he was a coach trying to get to know the players, finding out who could do what and trying different options.

You have to respect them as well. Last week he could have rested half a dozen guys against Ulster but he said no, I’ll put my best team out. I respect him for that. Leinster are on the brink of glory again and if you look at the average age they are capable of being like Toulouse.

PS. It’s amazing in this game how journalists and pundits can write what they like about referees and their decisions but when a player speaks out and it’s his honest, personal opinion as to what he thinks of referees, he gets banned. It’s even deemed a worse offence than a punch Mike Tyson would have been proud of. The game’s gone daft.

All Sebastien Chabal said was that the standard of refereeing is shocking in France, and it is shocking. But they suspend him for six weeks. He’ll miss the semi-finals of the French championships and possibly the final, cops a big fine and has to do a referee’s course. That’s just a joke, in my opinion! Players play the game, put their bodies on the line, but if we have an opinion, it’s “just shut your mouth”. That’s incredible. It’s not as if he met the referee in the car park and beat the head off him and put him in the boot of the car. And, unfortunately, it will just make more players wary of giving interviews or saying what they really feel.

(In an interview with GERRY THORNLEY)