Pool Four/Munster v Bourgoin: Gerry Thornley catches up with ultra-consistent fullback Shaun Payne and finds the veteran has fully bought into Munster's never-say-die ethos
Shaun Payne left the Welford Road away changing-room earlier than most for some kicking practice. The conditions were nice and dry. But he and his team-mates had been aware of the forecast, and had watched enough of the Wasps match beforehand to anticipate the rains in London hitting Leicester before kick-off.
He returned to the dressingroom and came back out for the squad warm-up half an hour before kick-off. The rain was bucketing down. A fullback's nightmare.
There were many seminal moments in Munster's latest epic Heineken European Cup win, but somehow the moment you knew they were going to win was when Payne jumped and caught Andy Goode's steepling injury-time up-and-under amid a thicket of bodies in the pouring rain. Ah, Mr Consistency is still minding the fort.
He was grateful, at least, that there'd been no wind. In fact, a grubber in behind his three-quarter line or in front of him would have been far more lethal, "because it can do anything; it doesn't stop either, it slides along the ground". So he was just as grateful that Leicester under-used the ploy.
On days like last Sunday, for fullbacks there's only one thing to aim for: "Not to mess up, basically," he says laughing, "especially the ball on the ground is very difficult, very easy to miss-control. In conditions like that, it's going to turn into a kicking duel, really, at the end of the day."
Payne has been around the Munster and Irish scene long enough for him to call Munster's truncated, off-colour Magners Celtic League run-in to the opening Euro salvos as an "annual factor", whereby "the lads", as he calls the frontliners, make a delayed entrance to the season. Whereupon, the European Cup galvanises all concerned.
That said, privately he had his fears, as he reckons they all did. "I think we were all a bit worried about our form going into that match and it would be dishonest to say we weren't. We wouldn't have admitted it at the time, but I'm sure if you spoke to them now they'd all to a man say they were quite worried about what had happened, especially losing the week before at Thomond with basically a full side, and maybe a little low in confidence."
Goals change games, as Gilesy is wont to say, and tries change rugby matches.
Payne cites the opening Donncha O'Callaghan try against Leicester as a key turning point. Watching the video of the team jogging purposefully back to the half-way line the camera zooms in on O'Callaghan's still beaming face, but just as significant was the sight of O'Connell in the foreground continuing to smile as well. As Payne says, "we hadn't had much to smile about". There have been greater days, but not many better wins in Payne's view, especially considering how they dug up such a performance from such a low base in one of European rugby's true fortresses.
"The bigger the occasion, the more it brings the lads together, you know what I mean? In a way that draw actually really suited us, being away to a team like Leicester in the first round, just having everything stacked up against us, in a strange way sort of suits us, in terms of being able to bring out the best in the team now."
By contrast, Munster are today laden with the almost more uncomfortable feeling of being strong favourites; even foregone certainties to win for some.
But listening to Payne talk about Munster's remarkable unbeaten record in the cup at Thomond Park the thought of losing evokes interviews with All Blacks' players approaching a match with Ireland. Not on my watch, is the mantra.
"You sure as hell wouldn't want to be one of the team that loses at Thomond Park in the Heineken Cup. That's in the back of your mind, I can guarantee you, as a player, the whole time. It sharpens the mind."
Like his fellow South African Trevor Halstead, Payne readily describes last May's day as "The High"; in part also because like Halstead, he'd been in many losing finals but never in a winning one.
"The full contingent" of his brother and dad, his wife and her parents were amongst those lucky to be there. His father, Lawrence, lives near to Newlands in Cape Town, has seen plenty of huge rugby matches, and had never experienced anything like that.
Lawrence Payne's parents hailed from Sligo and Ireland is one of three countries (he eventually qualified for Wales by dint of residency) his son Shaun might have played for in different circumstances. Worse players, be they wingers or fullbacks, have played Test rugby. In Payne's case, he appears to have been a victim as much of timing as anything else.
Wherever he goes, he lays roots. Swansea, or in even its modern guise as the Ospreys, might still be his home but for the club's financial difficulties. He'd have retired two years ago had Munster not renewed his contract. This was always going to be his final port of call. Nothing could top this, yet it's surprising to hear him candidly admit "obviously hindsight is a wonderful thing but when I left South Africa in '99 when I was 27, I wish I'd come straight here".
With that would have come a better shot at playing for Ireland. By then, four seasons ago, the horse had bolted a little. And he considers himself a better player than when he left South Africa, primarily because of the confidence the move has given him. For such a seemingly self-assured player and person, it's surprising to hear he used to doubt himself more.
Rugby has helped to broaden his horizons, along with his wife, Michelle, and two children, the Swansea-born Dylan, aged 4, and Cork-born baby girl Amy, and he's grateful for that. "We're sort of a little bit insular down there some times, being on the tip of Africa. You don't really see what's happening in the rest of the world," he admits with a self-deprecating chuckle.
Though reckoned to be 38 in the irreverent confines of the changing-room, Payne's durability and consistently high standards of performance at 34 are quite remarkable. Too modest to admit to the latter, he attributes his durability in part to not having the additional punishment of Test rugby, and his genes. His father played hockey till his late 30s, taking up golf at 45 and is now playing off a handicap of five at 60-something, while his grandfather played cricket until his 60s.
He and his family moved into Killaloe over a year ago, and he's not sure if that's where his home will remain or whether he will return to what he used to call home. This is the last year of his contract and his mind is set on retirement, if a tad reluctantly. "They say you don't want to overstay your welcome, but that's not strictly true. I don't want to take the piss out of my body as well." In saying that, he's felt good this season, better than last season. "I'm still saying I'm ending it this season, it's just not a definite anymore," he says laughing.
On one side of the world lies his brother, whose IT company has some big contracts with the likes of Vodafone, on this side the quality of life that would come with staying here, perhaps coaching, and a network of good friends. "I'm still a bit wary of going back in terms of the situation in South Africa. It's a lovely country, very good lifestyle, but there are factors there like crime and things like that which you don't have to face here in every day life," he says, almost thinking aloud. "I just dunno. We're so 50-50 at the moment."
He never figured himself as a coach, and has been surprised at how much he's enjoyed helping out coaching the Thomond backs. You sense the astute Payne rugby brain has more to give to the game, and he'd hate to walk away from a game that has given him so much. And it ain't finished yet.
Like the rest of them, he imagines scaling The High again . . .
Munster 17 Bourgoin 15
Thomond Park, September 20th, 1997
That this was before the harvest is best exemplified by just 6,000 loyalists turning up at fortress Thomond. After away defeats to Harlequins and Cardiff, victory here was paramount if Munster were to progress from the pool. Paul Burke kicked four penalties but it still required a well-worked try from John Lacey with four minutes remaining to seal the first of so many memorable European conquests in Limerick.
Bourgoin 21 Munster 6
Stade Pierre Rajon, October 4th, 1997
Defeat to Cardiff at Musgrave Park had already scuppered aspirations of progressing to the knock-out stages but this feisty encounter - Peter Clohessy was taken out - became another rung on the steep learning curve that eventually dissolved the fear for Irish sides on French soil. Shannon's long-serving Kiwi Rhys Ellison landed two penalties but the Bourgoin pack muscled over for two of the home team's three tries.
Bourgoin 17 Munster 18
Stade Pierre Rajon, December 6th, 2003 Munster's good friend Sebastian Chabal rumbled over for what so easily could have been the decisive try in this typically dour, war of attrition.Rob Henderson's timely introduction earned Ronan O'Gara a long-range match-winning penalty, which the outhalf duly nailed to make it six from seven attempts in yet another fine kicking display.
Munster 26 Bourgoin 3
Thomond Park, February 2nd 2004
Bourgoin experienced a miserable European campaign, even losing to Treviso, but in an ominous sign for today, they refused to roll over and let their bonus point chasing hosts tickle their bellies. The crucial fourth try did eventually arrive via a contentious call by English referee Tony Spreadbury after a collapsed scrum. It meant a home quarter-final in the spring.
- Gavin Cummiskey
