Munster 23, Biarritz 19: If ever we wanted a clearer understanding of what the Munster X factor is, this provided it, and the timing couldn't have been better. Cometh the hour, literally, and in their time of greatest need on Saturday, the big screen panned to a shot of the estimated 15,000 in O'Connell Street in Limerick.
It was if somebody had plugged the X factor into the Millennium Stadium. A great surge of energy went through the 60,000-plus Red Army situated under the closed roof and, critically, into the team.
With that, Munster dragged themselves toward the 80th minute and their holy grail. This was Thomond Park transposed to Cardiff, via Lansdowne Road in the semi-finals. The celebrated 16th man had come into play. Talk about timing all right - Munster had a friend in a Sky sports studio.
It was exactly 60 minutes and 26 seconds into this white- knuckle ride.
Earlier, memories of touchjudge Steve Lander advising against John O'Neill's "try" against Stade Français in the Lille semi-final of 2001 came flooding back as another English touchjudge, Dave Pearson, made a costly wrong call after just three minutes, failing to see Sereli Bobo twice put a boot on the touchline before scoring the opening try.
Yet, fortified by an inner strength drawn from past heartaches, Munster did not panic but went into their huddle and systematically set about rectifying the early damage.
When Ronan O'Gara kicked them 20-10 in front early in the second half a fellow scribe suggested they had one hand on the trophy. Well, a finger anyway.
Briefly, the Biarritz body language was that of a beaten team. But Munster wavered, and come the hour mark, it was barely a finger. Biarritz, the proud, bruising, experienced French champions, unleashed all their moves and dragged themselves back into the contest, as much through the brilliant Dimitri Yachvili as anyone else.
Even after the O'Connell Street interlude, the cocky, spindly-legged scrumhalf kept punishing mistakes, to bring it back to 20-19. Now Munster barely had a fingernail on the trophy. Whereupon Census Johnson went in from the side. As Ronan O'Gara lined up the penalty, the big screen panned back to Limerick again.
Paul O'Connell motioned to his fellow forwards to look at the pictures. "We can't let them down," he said, but they were all thinking the same thing.
Another surge went through the Red Army inside the ground, grateful and privileged to be there. It briefly broke O'Gara's concentration but, in keeping with the 100 per cent ratio of both kickers, he had turned away even before the ball bisected the posts.
Of course, Munster are the Drama Kings after all, and late scares were inevitable. But the rendition of The Fields with the clock showing 78 minutes and 50 seconds, seemingly for an eternity, was extraordinary.
Somehow you knew that not even Biarritz could break this collective spirit.
Fittingly it was Peter Stringer, darling of the crowd for his cheeky, daredevil try, who had the final act in booting the ball into the crowd.
In truth, drawing on forces outside the ground was a little hard on Biarritz, as if they didn't have enough to contend with inside. But even by their honest-as-the-day-is-long standards, Munster have rarely dug deeper.
The number 13 curse had already sidelined Barry Murphy and a few more. Marcus Horan hadn't played since the quarter-finals seven weeks before, Jerry Flannery and John Kelly since the semi-final three weeks previously. O'Connell, Denis Leamy, Stringer and Ronan O'Gara had all picked up knocks in the intervening period.
O'Connell was effectively playing on one leg, an injured ankle affecting his ability to land from takes in the air, which, along with a strained neck in the warm-up, curtailed his influence as a lineout option and ball carrier. Yet his sheer presence was immense and incalculable, and others rose to the challenge, none better than Donncha O'Callaghan.
Horan had a hard time in the scrums, but having conceded a three-pointer was, typically, the first forward across the pitch from a lineout moments later to make yards up the opposite touchline. How John Hayes does what he does is beyond belief, and the man should be wrapped in cotton wool for the summer.
Munster deserved to win simply because they wanted it more. The all-action fight of Flannery and Leamy underlined the far greater willingness of Munster forwards, David Wallace and Anthony Foley too, to make punishing hard yards than their Biarritz counterparts.
The best thing about Bobo's try was there were still 77 minutes left. Hayes revealed there was no hint of panic in the ensuing huddle, where Kelly apologised for having been handed off by Philippe Bidabe in the build-up.
And Kelly, now one of the team's totems, was true to his word in a near faultless display thereafter. The defence wasn't breached again, Stringer acting as a sweeper to cover Nicolas Brusque's chips from late interventions into the line.
The pick-and-go drives of the forwards generated the momentum for the two first-half tries in response to that early set-back. Twice opting for the corner, Munster wanted to make a statement. They knew from past failures that tries win cup finals. Another hero was Anthony Horgan, a nervous wreck of a supporter at the quarter-final, when so far off the radar he watched the game from the Paddy Power screen in the car park.
Seriously up for it, using good footwork and running hard into contact any chance he got, Horgan it was who chased and tapped down Shaun Payne's counterattacking chip for Flannery - who else? - O'Connell and Foley to take it on.
Leamy took a hard, straight line, Horan and Wallace taking it on, and Trevor Halstead took O'Gara's pass to crash through Bidabe and Jean-Baptiste Gobelet. Always the backline's best reference point in attack, the ex-Springbok once again delivered on the big occasion.
So too did Stringer, the ultimate competitor, whose try is apparently a semi-called moved named Braveheart in his honour. A vacant Biarritz blindside gap had been something the Munster brains trust had spotted on video, and Bobo misinterpreted Julien Peyrelongue's call to cover any chip when Stringer passed infield as a call to come inside there and then, while Serge Betsen wasn't alert to the impending danger.
Then again, neither was anyone in the crowd, or on O'Connell Street, or anywhere else. Only one man knew what was going to happen next. The sheer, brazen nerve of it. Brilliant. Even a little hilarious. It will forever remain one of the abiding images of Irish rugby.
Thereafter Munster led all the way. The second half would become a titanic cup final, as Kelly said, a battle of wills merely to get into each other's half.
But Munster got there in the end, with a little help from their X factor. You can't bottle it. So it is Heineken, after all, who do the perfect rugby day.
Scoring sequence: 3 mins: Bobo try, Yachvili con 0-7; 8: O'Gara pen 3-7; 17: Halstead try, O'Gara con 10-7; 23: Yachvili pen 10-10; 31: Stringer try, O'Gara con 17-10; (half-time 17-10); 43: O'Gara pen 20-10; 49: Yachvili pen 20-13; 51: Yachvili pen 20-16; 71: Yachvili pen 20-19; 74: O'Gara pen 23-19.
MUNSTER: S Payne; A Horgan, J Kelly, T Halstead, I Dowling; R O'Gara, P Stringer; M Horan, J Flannery, J Hayes; D O'Callaghan, P O'Connell; D Leamy, D Wallace, A Foley (capt). Replacements: F Pucciariello for Horan (63 mins); M O'Driscoll for Foley (70 mins); A Quinlan for O'Connell (76 mins). Not used: D Fogarty, T O'Leary, J Manning, R Henderson.
BIARRITZ: N Brusque; J-B Gobelet, P Bidabe, D Traille, S Bobo; J Peyrelongue, D Yachvili; P Balan, B August, C Johnson; J Thion, D Couzinet; S Betsen, I Harinordoquy, T Lièvremont. Replacements: O Olibeau for Couzinet (45 mins); T Dusautoir for Lièvremont (52 mins); F Martin-Arramburu for Traille (53 mins); B Lecouls for Johnson (63 mins), B Noirot (67 mins). Not used: M Carizza, J Dupuy.
Referee: Chris White (England)
