Munster 19 Perpignan 10: It'll be Irish rugby's equivalent of a civil war, its version of the Divorce Referendum, as divisive as Saipan. Even some families, never mind neighbourhoods, will be split between the opposing camps.

Munster don't normally do anti-climaxes but after Leinster's thriller in Toulouse they hadn't much option. Normally the shoe is on the other foot.

Munster have generally hogged the weekend's Heineken European Cup headlines, some Herculean and heroic deeds of theirs completely overshadowing whatever Leinster have done, or at the very least putting their Irish brethren's efforts into a dimmer light.

In the heel of the hunt, when it comes to cup football the only thing that really matters is victory. Even in three weeks' time the manner of Munster's win on Saturday will have long been forgotten. By then, a lot more will have been said and written and the nature of the respective semi-final wins will only reinforce the caricaturing of the two teams.

This time Munster have had to play second fiddle and, luxuriating in Leinster's status as marginal, 4 to 7, favourites, with themselves at 5 to 4, perhaps ominously for Leinster, they seemed quite content to.

Having ensured there will be an Irish team in the final for the first time in four years Kidney took a holistic approach to Saturday's double.

"It was a brilliant win by Leinster today, wasn't it? To go down to Toulouse and score 41 points is a huge credit to them," he said. "It's brilliant for Irish rugby. There's going to be a lot written about it over the next three weeks, there's going to be an Irish team in the final of the European Cup and it speaks volumes for the strength of rugby in this country at the moment.

"It's going to be another day here and we're delighted for our supporters," he added. "Dublin is somewhat easier access than Toulouse but I'm sure it's going to be a great day all told. All the boys know one another well, they'll go at it hammer and tongs, and it should be a great day out."

At home last Saturday, away in three weeks' time, Munster turned the old ground into Stade de Rouge for a day. The colour and the roar that greeted the red-shirted heroes as Anthony Foley led them onto the pitch exceeded anything to greet an Irish side here for the last 20 years and must have registered on the Richter scale.

"We couldn't hear one another talk to each other at times, which is why we had one or two missed calls," said Foley. "It just lifts you and you just keep running."

Yet, perhaps because the game itself never scaled the heights of the celebrated semi-final with Wasps at Lansdowne Road, neither did the atmosphere.

One ventures that Munster weren't quite themselves on Saturday. Perhaps it had something to do with the tragic death a week earlier of the talented 25-year-old Cork Constitution outhalf-cum-centre Conrad O'Sullivan. You only had to look at Ronan O'Gara's distress during the pre-match minute's silence to appreciate how affected the Munster squad were and how emotionally draining the early part of last week must have been.

Kidney was surely alluding to all of this when commenting: "There's been a lot of things happened for the boys both on and off the pitch over the last two weeks, and to show the mental courage they have done to get themselves right and to concentrate as well as they did out on the pitch today in not giving up anything soft I think showed a lot of application."

Munster were also denied a fixture the previous weekend, and Kidney revealed a full-on seven-minute cameo in Tuesday's training, instigated by Anthony Foley and Mick O'Driscoll despite the reservations of team-mates, had given them an invaluable taste of the type of trench warfare Perpignan would provide.

Denis Leamy is expected to recover from his latest ankle strain, but Munster will be keen to give Mike Mullins, Rob Henderson and Christian Cullen some game time in the intervening Celtic League games against the Dragons and Edinburgh.

Perpignan had anticipated "a stade de rouge", according to their winger Christophe Manas, who reckoned they garnished the occasion with the fighting spirit of the Irish but weren't cold-blooded enough.

"I'm not surprised Leinster and Munster have qualified for the semi-finals," he said, "because during the last Six Nations Ireland were the team I enjoyed watching the most because they played totally rugby and I like that. So it's not a surprise for me that there will be an all-Irish semi-final in Dublin."

However tough it might be imagining who'll win this semi-final, worse still is thinking of who might lose it.

Eh, it's only a game?