Although Athenry is a town in Co Galway, Munster have embraced The Fields of Athenry as their anthem while the Shannon contingent can be heard belting out There Is An Isle.
Cringe time
Well, get ready to cringe because the Leinster website has awarded three punters tickets for Sunday after coming up with what was perceived as the best "chants".
Here's just one of the winning ballads (to the tune of I'll Tell My Ma): "I'll tell my ma when I go home; The Leinster team is on its own; O'Driscoll, D'Arcy, Horgan too; It makes you proud just wearing blue. Blaney, Gleeson, Denis Hickie; Contepomi looks so pretty; We'll keep cheering, never stop; Till we win the Heineken Cup."
Very sad.
Party almost over for RTÉ
The build-up on RTÉ 2 starts at 2pm with the usual sound bites from coaches and captains, along with analysis from George Hook, Brent Pope and Conor O'Shea.
As usual, Tom McGurk is the anchorman with Ryle Nugent and Tony Ward in the commentary box.
They will all have less work on their plate next season. This is the penultimate European Cup match to be shown live on RTÉ as Sky Sports take over sole rights for 2006/07.
It's a massive loss to RTÉ, considering an audience of 584,000 tuned in at peak time during the Munster v Perpignan quarter-final at Lansdowne Road on April 1st.
Odds and ends
If you are smart enough to have Leinster at 25 to 1 to win the European Cup from earlier in the campaign, this will hardly interest you.
Paddy Power currently price them at 2 to 1 to win outright. Biarritz remain overall favourites at 5 to 4 with Munster 5 to 2 and Bath back at 11 to 1.
For the first try scorer we like Will Green at 66 to 1 and Donncha O'Callaghan at 40 to 1. A Munster v Bath final is also worth a look at 9 to 1.
Semi-final odds (Paddy Power): Leinster 4-7 v Munster 5-4. Biarritz Olympique 1-6 v Bath 7-2. European Cup outright (Boylesports): Biarritz 6/5, Leinster 2/1, Munster 11/4, Bath 12/1.
Stirring it up
Seemingly content to stir the pot, Ryanair deputy chief executive Michael Cawley has offered 1,000 free seats from Shannon airport for every point Munster beat Leinster by on Sunday.
Wait for it. The quote in yesterday's press release is even better: "We believe the best way to celebrate Munster's imminent victory over Leinster in the Heineken Cup semi-final on Sunday is to offer free seats to Munster supporters on flights from our Shannon base," said Cawley.
They say no publicity is bad publicity, but even accepting the tongue in cheek nature, we'll let the Leinster public decide on their future choice of airline.
Where are they now?
Leinster 14 Cardiff 23
Lansdowne Road, December 30th, 1995 Sunday will be Munster's sixth European Cup semi-final appearance in seven seasons. They have won two, beating Toulouse in Bordeaux in 2000 (the day the Red Army was born) and Castres in Beziers in 2003.
Sunday marks Leinster's third appearance in the semi-final from 11 attempts.
Few will remember the semi-final against Cardiff in the 1995/96 season. Just 7,350 turned up at Lansdowne Road to see the Welsh side prevail 23-14 - Leinster edging past Milan and Pontypridd hardly generated any momentum in Dublin rugby circles.
Leinster captain Chris Pim got over for the only Leinster try, while Blackrock's Alan McGowan slotted three penalties.
Only 12 teams from France, Ireland, Wales, Italy and Romania were involved in the inaugural tournament.
Cardiff lost to Toulouse, after extra-time, in the final at the old Arms Park in front of just 21,800 on January 6th 1996.
Of the Leinster team that day Conor O'Shea and Paul Wallace are regular TV pundits, while Alain Rolland is refereeing the other European Cup semi-final tomorrow between Bath and Biarritz.
Shane Byrne would still be hooking for the province only for a contractual dispute last summer.
LEINSTER: C Clarke; P Gavin, V Cunningham, K McQuilkin, C O'Shea; A McGowan, A Rolland; H Hurley, S Byrne, P Wallace; S Jameson, N Francis; C Pim (capt), S Rooney, V Costello. Replacements: R Hennessy for C Clarke.
CARDIFF: M Rayer; S Hill, M Hall, M Ring, S Ford; A Davies, A Moore; A Lewis, J Humphreys, L Mustoe, J Wakeford, D Jones, E Lewis, O Williams, H Taylor (capt).
Referee: Jim Fleming (Scotland).
