When we look back on this one it could turn out to be a seismic day. Rumours of Munster's impending demise may be a tad premature, but notions of Leinster's emergence as a real force in Irish and European rugby were confirmed by this memorable win. Halleluiah. Leinster have come of age.
The ripple effects could be immense. Leinster will have that bit more self-belief and confidence now to take with them into Europe in the New Year. In turn, Munster, for three years the benchmark by which Leinster were judged and came up short, now have to respond in type. The bar has been raised a little bit higher.
In that sense and a whole lot more, this was a good day for Irish rugby. It was a cracking advertisement for the sport in this island and even, by extension, the troubled, sponsorless, inaugural Celtic League. For all the knockers of this competition, it's worth pointing out the official crowd of 25,500 (which probably means close to 30,000 actually attended the game) exceeded the 21,800 who watched the inaugural European Cup final between Cardiff and Toulouse almost six years ago in Cardiff.
Tempers became frayed on the pitch, but the needle gave the match part of its edge and true to the traditions established by the Munster faithful in Thomond Park especially, place-kicks were observed with silence. Unlike the corporate-festooned international match day, this was a near 30,000 crowd of pure sports/rugby supporters. They came to watch a potentially great rugby occasion and boy did they get one.
No doubt there'll have been plenty of good-natured banter between the rival supporters afterwards. "Ah sure, we were missing Hayes, Wallace and Stringer and then we lost Henderson," bemoaned one Munsterman to a Leinsterman in the Lansdowne bar afterwards . "Yeah, and we beat you with 14 men."
And therein lies a tale, for the sending off of Eric Miller which obliged Leinster to play the last 54 minutes with 14 players robbed Munster of much of their excuses. Leinster's goose was about to enter a roasting-hot oven when they trailed 15-6 into the wind early in the second-half but they gutsily hung in there and then went and won the game with two stupendous tries. Leinster won this more than Munster lost it. And they won it the Leinster way.
There were heroes in blue aplenty, starting first and foremost with the Magnificent Seven up front. Paul Wallace will probably be the hero of the dressing-room for his Herculean effort on the tight side of a scrum shorn of a flanker against both Marcus Horan and Peter Clohessy.
For the second game running, Victor Costello was immense, and unstintingly brave in taking on difficult scrum ball and recycling it every time. Bob Casey made a big impact when he came on and yet again Keith Gleeson did as much as anyone to turn the game around by turning over Munster ball at the breakdown in trademark fashion.
Those two turnovers earned Leinster the territorial footing from which Nathan Spooner nailed the long-range penalties which brought Leinster back to 15-12 down and gave them hope. Opinions varied wildly as to Spooner's performance but after typifying Leinster's nervous first-half his cool match-winning temperament again shone through.
His kicking in behind the wingers into the breeze was effective and in keeping with a deliberate policy of not giving Munster a line-out platform for their hugely effective maul. Once more, too, his tackling was rock solid and his distribution generally excellent in creating space and options for the potent Shane Horgan-Brian O'Driscoll axis.
If there was a turning point it was assuredly the out-of-character punches thrown by Dominic Crotty in the 58th minute at 15-9, for which poor old Alan Quinlan was blamed. But it resulted in a relieving penalty for Leinster rather than an attacking scrum for Munster, lifting a potentially decisive siege.
At the same time, Rob Henderson limped off with a groin strain, whereupon Leinster began to cut through the Munster midfield. Leinster had gone close before, Horgan making big inroads before a brilliant try-saving tackle by Crotty and Girvan Dempsey just failing to hold Spooner's skip pass in a move which had opened Munster up.
Furthermore, O'Driscoll's deft hands had released Denis Hickie from another Spooner miss-pass which led to the outhalf landing his fourth penalty. It was disappointing that Munster found no room even in the 22 for the gifted Jeremy Staunton, who can cover outhalf, centre and full back and would be an undoubted impact replacement. It cost Munster, too, during Mike Mullins' two spells replacing Crotty.
The origins of Leinster's breakthrough try were Mullins' cross kick and Hickie's counter-attacking run up the touchline. Off the recycle, Gleeson demonstrated the creative aspects to his game with the dummy, break and one-handed offload which enabled Horgan to gobble up the ground again and put the flying Gordon D'Arcy in with the sweetest of flat passes.
Spooner, timing his break decisively, opened up Munster to give the classy O'Driscoll a chip and chase. Referee Nigel Whitehouse appeared to be waving play on after John O'Neill quite blatantly tackled O'Driscoll off the ball but Horgan had followed to claim the try adroitly. Horgan was a worthy man of the match.
Had Munster closed out the game, as most must have expected them to, early in the second-half we'd have rightly heralded the muscular work close-in of Mick Galwey and company which enabled them to boss chunks of the game and the remarkable return to arms from a long-term lay-off of Henderson - whose surging bursts off tap penalties were the prelude to the well-executed tries by Anthony Foley and O'Neill. It would be remiss, too, not to mention the mighty contribution of Jim Williams, whose ball-carrying, tackling and work-rate left an indelible imprint on the game.
SCORING SEQUENCE
5 mins Foley try, O'Gara con 0-7
11 mins Spooner pen 3-7
22 mins Spooner pen 6-7
39 mins O'Neill try 6-12
45 mins O'Gara pen 6-15
50 mins Spooner pen 9-15
64 mins Spooner pen 12-15
67 mins D'Arcy try, Spooner con 19-15
71 mins Horgan try 24-15
82 mins Horgan try 24-20
LEINSTER: G Dempsey; D Hickie, B O'Driscoll, S Horgan, G D'Arcy; N Spooner, B O'Meara; R Corrigan (capt), S Byrne, P Wallace, L Cullen, M O'Kelly, E Miller, V Costello, K Gleeson. Replacements - B Casey for Cullen (59 mins). Sent off - Miller (26 mins).
MUNSTER: D Crotty; J O'Neill, J Kelly, R Henderson, A Horgan; R O'Gara; P Stringer; M Horan, F Sheahan, P Clohessy, M Galwey (capt), P O'Connell, A Quinlan, A Foley, J Williams. Replacements - M Mullins for Crotty (3-10 mins and 64 mins), D Hegarty for Kelly (26-33 mins), J Holland for Henderson (58 mins), M Cahill for Clohessy (61 mins), M O'Driscoll for O'Connell (74 mins), C McMahon for Galwey (74 mins). Sinbinned - Prendergast (26-36 mins).
Referee: N Whitehouse (Wales).
